The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture Dark Fictions [Hardcover]

Thrilling, absorbing, and full of bizarre plot twists and motivations, the roman noir is crime fiction at its most exciting. In this lively introduction to the post-war French roman noir, Claire Gorrara challenges preconceptions about the roman noir as little more than a populist form of crime fiction and examines how selected writers have appropriated it as a critical response to formative concerns and debates in post-war French society.

Introduction
1. Origins and beginnings: L?o Malet's120, rue de la Gare(1943)
2. Criminal Intentions:Film NoirandLes Diabioliques(1955)
3. Counter-Cultural Politics: Jean-Patrick Manchette'sLe Petit Bleu de la c?te ouest(1976)
4. Historical investigations: Didier Daenickx'sMeurtres pour m?moire(1984)
5. Telling Tales: Daniel Pennac'sLa F?e Carabine(1987)
6. Feminist fictions: Maud Tabachnik'sUn ?t? pourri(1994)
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index

Claire Gorrara is Senior Lecturer in French at Cardiff University. She is author ofFrench Women's Writing and the Occupation in Post-1968 France(Macmillan, 1998) and co-editor ofEuropean Memories of the Second World War(Berghahn, 1998) andFrance Since the Revolution: Texts and Contexts(Arnold, forthcoming 2003).