Murder in the Multinational State

Book excerpt: As Spaniards set out to transform the political, social and cultural landscape of the nation following the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, its crime fiction traces, challenges and celebrates these radical changes. Crime Fiction from Spain: Murder in the Multinational State provides a comprehensive exploration of the relationship between detective fiction and national and cultural identities in post-Franco democratic Spain. What sort of stories are told about the nation within the state in the crime genre? How do the conventions of the crime story shape not only the production of national and cultural identities, but also their disruption? Combining criminological theories of crime and community with an analysis of the genre’s conventions, this study challenges the simple classification of Spanish crime fiction as texts written by Spaniards, set in Spain and with Spanish characters. Instead, it develops a dramatic new reading practice which allows for a greater understanding of the role of crime fiction in the construction and articulation of different and, at times, competing, national and cultural identities, including in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia. The book provides a stimulating introduction to the key debates on the study of crime fiction and national and cultural identities in the context of a multinational state.