New essays by leading scholars examining today's vibrant and innovative
German crime fiction, along with its historical background.
Although George Bernard Shaw quipped that "the Germans lack talent for
two things: revolution and crime novels," there is a long tradition of
German crime fiction; it simply hasn't aligned itself with international
trends. Duringthe 1920s, German-language writers dispensed with the
detective and focused instead on criminals, a trend that did not take
hold in other countries until after 1945, by which time Germany had gone
on to produce antidetective novels that were similarly ahead of their
time. German crime fiction has thus always been a curious case; rather
than follow the established rules of the genre, it has always been
interested in examining, breaking, and ultimately rewriting those rules.
This book assembles leading international scholars to examine today's
German crime fiction. It features innovative scholarly work that matches
the innovativeness of the genre, taking up the Regionalkrimi;crime
fiction's reimagining and transforming of traditional identities;
historical crime fiction that examines Germany's and Austria's
conflicted twentieth-century past; and how the newly vibrant Austrian
crime fiction ties in with and differentiates itself from its German
counterpart.
Contributors: Angelika Baier, Carol Anne Costabile-Heming, Kyle
Frackman, Sascha Gerhards, Heike Henderson, Susanne C. Knittel, Anita
McChesney, Traci S. O'Brien, Jon Sherman, Faye Stewart, Magdalena
Waligórska.
Lynn M. Kutch is Professor of German at Kutztown University of
Pennsylvania. Todd Herzog is Professor and Head of the Department of
German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.
