Mediterranean Noir refers to a literary style that employs elements of noir and hardboiled

Hardboiled

Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...

 crime fiction in a Mediterranean setting. Sex, crime, and physical violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

 often figure prominently in Mediterranean Noir narratives. Social and historical issues specific to the region – particularly governmental corruption

Political corruption

Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 and instability, war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

, and racial strife – are frequently underlying plot considerations. Prominent authors of the movement include Jean-Claude Izzo

Jean-Claude Izzo

Jean-Claude Izzo was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who achieved sudden fame in the mid-1990s with the publication of his three neo-noir crime novels Total Chaos, Chourmo, and Solea , featuring as protagonist ex-cop Fabio Montale, and set in the author's native city of...

, Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri

Andrea Camilleri is an Italian writer.-Biography:Originally from Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Camilleri, began studies at the Faculty of Literature in 1944, without concluding them, meanwhile publishing poems and short stories.From 1948 to 1950 Camilleri studied stage and film direction at the Silvio...

, Massimo Carlotto, Eduardo Mendoza

Eduardo Mendoza Ceballos

Eduardo Mendoza Garriga is a Spanish novelist.Born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, he studied law in the first half of the 1960s and lived in New York between 1973 and 1982, working as interpreter for the United Nations....

, and Batya Gur

Batya Gur

Batya Gur was an Israeli writer. Her specialty was detective fiction.-Biography:Batya Gur was born in Tel Aviv in 1947 to parents who survived the Holocaust. She earned a master's degree in Hebrew literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before writing her first detective novel at the...

.

According to the Italian publisher Sandro Ferri, Mediterranean Noir is remarkable for its attention to a unique duality of Mediterranean life:

The prevailing vision in the novels belonging to the genre known as Mediterranean noir is a pessimistic one. Authors and their literary inventions look upon the cities of the Mediterranean and see places that have been broken, battered, and distorted by crime. There is always a kind of dualism that pervades these works. On one hand, there is the Mediterranean lifestyle-- fine wine and fine food, friendship, conviviality, solidarity, blue skies and limpid seas-- an art of living brought almost to perfection. On the other hand, violence, corruption, greed, and abuses of power.

External links

• Europa Editions staff, Sandro Ferri
• Europa Editions press room, Massimo Carlotto