Scandinavian Crime Fiction

Description

This collection of articles studies the development of crime fiction in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden since the 1960s, offering the first English-language study of this widely read and influential form. Since the first Martin-Beck novel of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö appeared in 1965, the socially-critical crime novel has figured prominently in Scandinavian culture, and found hundreds of millions of readers outside Scandinavia. But is there truly a Scandinavian crime novel tradition? Scandinavian Crime Fiction identifies distinct features and changes in the Scandinavian crime tradition through analysis of some of its most well-known writers: Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Anne Holt, Liza Marklund, Leena Lehtolainen, and Arnaldur Indriðason, among others. Focusing on Scandinavian crime fiction’s snowballing prominence since the 1990s, articles zoom in on the transformation of the genre’s social criticism, study the significance of cultural and geographical place in the tradition, and analyze the cultural politics of crime fiction, including struggles over gender equity, sexuality, ethnicity, history, and the fate of the welfare state. Scandinavian Crime Fiction maps out the contribution of Scandinavian crime writers to contemporary European culture and society, making the volume valuable to scholars and the interested public.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Idioma inglés
• Northern Europe
• North Germanic languages
• Scandinavia
• English
• Scandinavie
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783164370
• Langue: English

Extrait

SCANDINAVIAN CRIME FICTION
Series Editors
Claire Gorrara (Cardiff University) Shelley Godsland (University of Birmingham) Giuliana Pieri (Royal Holloway, London)
Editorial Board
Margaret Atack (University of Leeds) George Demko (Dartmouth College) John Foot (University College London) Stephen Knight (Cardiff University) Nickianne Moody (Liverpool John Moores University) Elfriede M ller (Berlin) Anne White (University of Bradford)
EUROPEAN CRIME FICTIONS
SCANDINAVIAN CRIME FICTION
Edited by Andrew Nestingen and Paula Arvas
The Contributors, 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Applications for the copyright owner s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to The University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library CIP Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9780708323304 eISBN 9781783164370
The right of the Contributors to be identified separately as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover design: Olwen Fowler Cover illustration: Brett Breckon
Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Contemporary Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Paula Arvas and Andrew Nestingen
Part I: Revisions of the Socially Critical Genre Tradition
1 Dirty Harry in the Swedish Welfare State
Michael Tapper
2 The WellAdjusted Cops of the New Millennium: NeoRomantic Tendencies in the Swedish Police Procedural
Kerstin Bergman
3 Meaningless Icelanders: Icelandic Crime Fiction and Nationality
Katr n Jakobsd ttir
4 Digging into the Secrets of the Past: Rewriting History in the Modern Scandinavian Police Procedural
Karsten Wind Meyhoff
Part II: Questions of Place
5 The Place of Pessimism in Henning Mankell s Kurt Wallander Series
Shane McCorristine
6 Gender and Geography in Contemporary Scandinavian Television Crime Fiction
Karen Klitgaard Povlsen
7 Straight Queers: Anne Holt s Transnational Lesbian Detective Fiction
Ellen Rees
8 Next to the Final Frontier: Russians in Contemporary Finnish and Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Paula Arvas
Part III: Politics of Representation
9 Swedish Queens of Crime: the Art of Self-Promotion and the Notion of Feminine Agency - Liza Marklund and Camilla L ckberg
Sara K rrholm
10 High Crime in Contemporary Scandinavian Literature - the Case of Peter H eg s
Miss Smilla s Feeling for Snow Magnus Persson
11 H kan Nesser and the Third Way: of Loneliness, Alibis and Collateral Guilt
Sylvia S derlind
12 Unnecessary Officers: Realism, Melodrama and Scandinavian Crime Fiction in Transition
Andrew Nestingen
Acknowledgements
This book is the result of a conversation between the editors that began in the Helsinkiestablishment Corona in summer 2002, but really dates to a friendship that began in 1996 in the department of Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki. Since then scholarly research on Scandinavian crime fiction has flourished. Major studies on crime fiction have been published by Daniel Brod n, Jost Hindermann, Sara K rrholm, Karsten Wind Meyhoff, Magnus Persson, Voitto Ruohonen and Lars Wendelius, among others. This book has offered us the opportunity to engage these scholars and others work, to work with some of them and to discover contributors to the field whose work we did not know. We are deeply thankful to the contributors to this volume for this opportunity and for their work in producing this volume. The contributors were unfailingly patient with our requests for revisions and cuts, making the work of preparing the volume stimulating and enjoyable. Their work is this book s contribution to the conversation about Scandinavian crime fiction.
A number of other scholars and institutions played critical roles in bringing this book about, whom we also wish to thank. Peter Kirkegaard, Nils Nordberg and Johan Wopenka shared their thoughts and research with us as we prepared the volume, for which we wish to say a hearty thanks. We also wish to thank Professor Gunhild Agger of Aalborg University and her Crime fiction and crime journalismresearch group. Professor Agger and her colleagues provided a warm and hospitable environment in Klimt to present and discuss some of the work in this volume, for which we are deeply thankful. We also wish to thank Professor Claire Gorrara of Cardiff University, who is series editor of European Crime Fictions. Professor Gorrara supported this book s inclusion in the series and was happy to share with us thoughtful advice about this manuscript, for which we are grateful. Special thanks go as well to the institutions that helped make the book possible. The bulk of the editorial work took place at the University of Helsinki, where research fellowships in the collegium for advanced studies and the department of Finnish literature made it possible for us to work together intensively on editing the manuscript. The book would not have been possible without the collaboration made possible by this research time. Special thanks to the director of the collegium during 2008 and 2009, Professor Juha Sihvola, and also to collegium research assistant Jenni T. Laitinen, who provided expert help. The University of Washington s department of Scandinavian studies also provided valuable research support. Preparation of the manuscript for publication depended upon the extraordinary assistance of Maren Anderson, for which we say a wholehearted thanks. Many thanks as well to Professor Terje Leiren, for backing the project with research support along the way. Many unnamed others contributed through criticism, conversation and discussion, for which we are grateful.
The book is dedicated to Andrew Nestingen s parents, for their support and encouragement over many years. It is also dedicated to Paula Arvas s husband Juha for his love and support, and to their baby daughter Selma.
Notes on Contributors
Paula Arvas received her Ph.D. from the Department of Finnish language and literature at the University of Helsinki in 2009, where she has lectured about Finnish crime fiction, Scandinavian crime fiction and popular fiction. She is the author of Rauta ja Ristilukki. Vilho Helasen salapoliisiromaanit [ Iron and the CrossSpider: Vilho Helasen s Detective Fiction ](Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society: 2009). Her topics of research interest include the history of Finnish crime fiction, modern Finnish thrillers, Scandinavian crime fiction, the effects of war in crime fiction and feminist crime fiction.
Kerstin Bergman Ph.D. is Senior Research Fellow in comparative literature at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Sweden. Currently she is working on a project about the function of science in contemporary crime fiction, financed for four years by the Swedish Research Council. She is the author of En m jlig v rld [ A Conceivable World ](Hedemora: Gidlund, 2002), as well as numerous articles on contemporary literature and crime fiction, and its relation to film, science, memory and the senses.
Katr n Jakobsd ttir finished her MA thesis, Social structures in Icelandic crime literature at the University of Iceland in 2004. She has taught at the University of Iceland and the University of Reykjav k, and has published articles on Icelandic crime fiction and Icelandic children s literature in literary magazines. Jakobsd ttir was elected to the Parliament of Iceland in the spring of 2007, and now serves as Member of Parliament.
Sara K rrholm s most recent book is Konsten att l gga pussel. Deckaren och besv rjandet av ondskan i folkhemmet [ The Art of Doing a Puzzle: The Detective Novel and the Conjuring of Evil in the Swedish Welfare State ](Stehag: Brutus stlings Bokf rlag Symposion, 2005). K rrholm earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Lund, Sweden. She is currently engaged in designing a new research project about Scandinavian crime fiction.
Shane McCorristine is IRCHSS Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Mobility Fellow at NUI Maynooth and Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge , 2010-13. His most recent book is Spectres of the Self: Thinking about Ghosts and Ghostseeing in England, c.1750-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). His current research interests include the history of science, children s literature and the history of Arctic exploration.
Karsten Wind Meyhoff is a doctoral candidate in arts and cultural studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he teaches crime fiction history and theory, film noir and the crime film. His most recent books are Forbrydelsens elementer. Kriminallitteraturens historie fra Poe til Ellroy [ Elements of Crime: The History of Crime Fiction from Poe to Ellroy ](Copenhagen: Information, 2009) and Bj rlings metode. Et portr t af Gunnar Bj rling og hans naturdigtning [ Bj rling s Method: Portrait of Gunnar Bj rling and his Nature Poetry ](Copenhagen: Multivers, 2008). He is also editor of the Danish edition of the magazine Lettre Internationale ( www.lettre.dk ). He is currently working on a book about Los Angeles and hardboiled crime fiction.
Andrew Nestingen is Associate Professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of Washington, where he teaches Finnish studies, Scandinavian cinema and cultural theory. He is author of Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008). He also coedited with Trevor Elkington Transnational Cinema