Murder in the Multinational State

Crime Fiction from Spain

Stewart King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000021851
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

As Spaniards set out to transform the political, social and cultural landscape of the nation following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, its crime fiction traces, challenges and celebrates these radical changes. Crime Fiction from Spain: Murder in the Multinational State provides a comprehensive exploration of the relationship between detective fiction and national and cultural identities in post-Franco democratic Spain. What sort of stories are told about the nation within the state in the crime genre? How do the conventions of the crime story shape not only the production of national and cultural identities, but also their disruption? Combining criminological theories of crime and community with an analysis of the genre's conventions, this study challenges the simple classification of Spanish crime fiction as texts written by Spaniards, set in Spain and with Spanish characters. Instead, it develops a dramatic new reading practice which allows for a greater understanding of the role of crime fiction in the construction and articulation of different and, at times, competing, national and cultural identities, including in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. The book provides a stimulating introduction to the key debates on the study of crime fiction and national and cultural identities in the context of a multinational state.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface: A Confession of Sorts
• Introduction: Constructing Communities in Crime Fiction: The Case of Spain
• 1 Nations and their Margins: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s Carvalho Series
• 2 Criminal Records and Democratic Futures: Investigating the Spanish Civil War and Franco Dictatorship
• 3 The Language of Detection in Catalan Crime Fiction
• 4 The Consequences of Crime: Victims in the Basque Thriller
• 5 The Usual Suspects: Investigating Stereotypes and Modernity in the Galician Crime Novel
• 6 Contemporary Police Fiction: The Return of Centralised Authority
• Conclusion: Interrogating Identities in the Multinational, Multicultural State and Beyond
• Bibliography
• Index