This book is the first monograph in English that comprehensively examines the ways in which Italian historical crime novels, TV series, and films have become a means to intervene in the social and political changes of the country. This study explores the ways in which fictional representations of the past mirror contemporaneous anxieties within Italian society in the work of writers such as Leonardo Sciascia, Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli, Francesco Guccini, Loriano Macchiavelli, Marcello Fois, Maurizio De Giovanni, and Giancarlo De Cataldo; film directors such as Elio Petri, Pietro Germi, Michele Placido, and Damiano Damiani; and TV series such as the Commissario De Luca series, the Commissario Nardone series, and Romanzo criminaleThe series. Providing the most wide-ranging examination of this sub-genre in Italy, Barbara Pezzotti places works set in the Risorgimento, WWII, and the Years of Lead in the larger social and political context of contemporary Italy.

Considers a variety of texts, from novels to TV series and films Looks at how historical detective fiction mirrors contemporary concerns Takes an interdisciplinary approach, combining literary theory with historiographical concerns and memory studies

Autorentext

Barbara Pezzotti is an Honorary Research Associate of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS), Australia. She received her PhD from Victoria University, New Zealand and is the author of The Importance of Place in Contemporary Italian Crime Fiction: A Bloody Journey (2012) and Politics and Society in Italian Crime Fiction: An Historical Overview (2014).

Inhalt

Introduction.- The Foundation of the State: Giallo and the Risorgimento.- The Giallo and the Black: The Representation of Fascism and WWII between Revisionism and Criticism.- The Giallo and Terrorism: the Years of Lead and the Conspiracy Novel.- Conclusion.