Italian Crime Fiction - ed. Guliana Pieri

This collection of essays on Italian crime fiction is a welcome breath of fresh air after so much Anglo-American detective fiction. When the publishing house Mondadori began introducing English and American detective novels through its famous Giallo series, many Italian intellectuals looked down on the genre as little more than popular entertainment. Italian writers soon began producing their own crime novels, although most of the early works were largely imitations of their foreign counterparts.

Everything changed with Giorgio Scerbanenco and his four Milan novels featuring Dr. Duca Lamberti. Unfortunately, many Italian crime novels have yet to be translated into English. Scerbanenco transformed Milan into the quintessential noir city of Italian crime fiction while confronting the country's shameful Fascist past and its lingering social consequences.

For many years, crime fiction continued to be regarded with suspicion by Italy's literary establishment until several major mainstream writers embraced the genre. These included Umberto Eco with The Name of the Rose, Leonardo Sciascia with The Day of the Owl, Carlo Emilio Gadda with That Awful Mess on Via Merulana, and Antonio Tabucchi with The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro.

The 1980s saw the emergence of the so-called Bologna School, represented by writers such as Loriano Macchiavelli and Carlo Lucarelli, whose novels explored corruption and political tensions in Bologna. A separate chapter is devoted to Andrea Camilleri, whose Inspector Montalbano series and evocative Sicilian setting made him one of Italy's most successful crime writers.

Overall, this is an informative and engaging volume that traces the development of Italian crime fiction from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. It is highly recommended to anyone interested in exploring one of the richest and most distinctive traditions in European crime fiction.