In this Book
- Crimes against the State, Crimes against Persons: Detective Fiction in Cuba and Mexico
- Book
- 2004
- Published by: University of Minnesota Press
summary
The transplanted, inherently modern detective genre serves as an especially effective lens for exposing the fissures and divergences of modernity in post-1968 Mexico and revolutionary Cuba.
Combining in-depth critical analyses with the theoretical insights of current literary and cultural theory and Latin American postmodern studies, Crimes against the State, Crimes against Persons shows how the Cuban novela negra examines the Revolution through an incisive chronicle of life under a decaying regime, and how the Mexican neopoliciaco reveals the oppressive politics of modernization and globalization in Latin America.
International in scope, comparative in approach, Braham’s study presents a unique inquiry into the ethical and aesthetic complexities that Latin American authors face in adapting genre detective fiction—a modern, metropolitan model—to radically diverse creative and ideological programs. Considering the work of writers such as Leonardo Padura Fuentes and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, as well as such English-language influences as G. K. Chesterton and Chester Himes, Braham also addresses Marxist critiques of the culture industry and emergent Latin American concepts of postmodernity.
Combining in-depth critical analyses with the theoretical insights of current literary and cultural theory and Latin American postmodern studies, Crimes against the State, Crimes against Persons shows how the Cuban novela negra examines the Revolution through an incisive chronicle of life under a decaying regime, and how the Mexican neopoliciaco reveals the oppressive politics of modernization and globalization in Latin America.
International in scope, comparative in approach, Braham’s study presents a unique inquiry into the ethical and aesthetic complexities that Latin American authors face in adapting genre detective fiction—a modern, metropolitan model—to radically diverse creative and ideological programs. Considering the work of writers such as Leonardo Padura Fuentes and Paco Ignacio Taibo II, as well as such English-language influences as G. K. Chesterton and Chester Himes, Braham also addresses Marxist critiques of the culture industry and emergent Latin American concepts of postmodernity.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. vii-viii
- Cuba: Crimes against the State
- 2. A Revolutionary Aesthetic
- pp. 21-38
- Mexico: Crimes against Persons
- 4. Contesting “la mexicanidad”
- pp. 65-80
- 5. The Dismembered City
- pp. 81-100
- Bibliography
- pp. 145-164
- About the Author
- p. 170
Additional Information
ISBN
9780816694709
Related ISBN(s)
9780816641352
MARC Record
OCLC
614925321
Pages
192
Launched on MUSE
2015-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No