<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Crime fiction is currently evolving towards a literary genre which encompasses the intertwining of several textual practices, rhetorical modes, cultural identities, and topoi. Multiculturalism and the relation to alterity are gradually conquering the realm of detective fiction, thus rendering the crime enigma or suspense only secondary in comparison to other intellectual “enjeux” of the text. Transgressing the national horizon, contemporary detective fiction in Romanian literature can be thus considered as “world literature” (Nilsson–Damrosch–D’haen 2017) not only because it does not engage representations of Romanian spaces alone but also due to its translatability, its transnational range of cultural values and practices. This article aims to discuss several categories of examples for this fresh diversity that Romanian crime fiction has encountered. Novels written recently by authors such as Petru Berteanu, Caius Dobrescu, Mihaela Apetrei, Alex Leo Şerban, or Eugen Ovidiu Chirovici employ variations such as either alternative narrators or cosmopolitan characters, or contribute to anthologies, writing directly in English in order to gain access to a more complex audience. The paper sets out to analyse the literary or rhetorical devices at work in these transgressional phenomena as well as their effects on contemporary Romanian crime narratives and their possible correlations to transnational phenomena.<sup>1</sup></p></abstract>

Crime fiction is currently evolving towards a literary genre which encompasses the intertwining of several textual practices, rhetorical modes, cultural identities, and topoi. Multiculturalism and the relation to alterity are gradually conquering the realm of detective fiction, thus rendering the crime enigma or suspense only secondary in comparison to other intellectual “enjeux” of the text. Transgressing the national horizon, contemporary detective fiction in Romanian literature can be thus considered as “world literature” (Nilsson–Damrosch–D’haen 2017) not only because it does not engage representations of Romanian spaces alone but also due to its translatability, its transnational range of cultural values and practices. This article aims to discuss several categories of examples for this fresh diversity that Romanian crime fiction has encountered. Novels written recently by authors such as Petru Berteanu, Caius Dobrescu, Mihaela Apetrei, Alex Leo Şerban, or Eugen Ovidiu Chirovici employ variations such as either alternative narrators or cosmopolitan characters, or contribute to anthologies, writing directly in English in order to gain access to a more complex audience. The paper sets out to analyse the literary or rhetorical devices at work in these transgressional phenomena as well as their effects on contemporary Romanian crime narratives and their possible correlations to transnational phenomena.1

Genre Transgression in Contemporary Romanian Crime Fiction

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Genre Transgression in Contemporary Romanian Crime Fiction"}

Crime fiction is currently evolving towards a literary genre which encompasses the intertwining of several textual practices, rhetorical modes, cultural...

Genre Transgression in Contemporary Romanian Crime Fiction

Publié en ligne: 11 déc. 2019

Pages: 21 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2019-0002

Mots clés
crime narratives, contemporary Romanian literature, intertextuality, hybridization, cultural intersections

© 2019 Roxana Eichel, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Genre Transgression in Contemporary Romanian Crime Fiction

Publié en ligne: 11 déc. 2019

Pages: 21 - 34

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2019-0002

Mots cléscrime narratives, contemporary Romanian literature, intertextuality, hybridization, cultural intersections

© 2019 Roxana Eichel, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
crime narratives, contemporary Romanian literature, intertextuality, hybridization, cultural intersections