Le Roman policier en Amérique française
(The Crime Novel in French-speaking America)
 Illustration : Bernard Duchesne |
We've all read at least
one crime novel in our lives. As we begin a new millennium, is
there anyone who has never heard of Hercule Poirot and Inspector
Maigret, or of their creators, Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon ?
However, if crime novels are part of our culture, what place
to they occupy in the national literature of Quebec ? Can
we really speak of a detective literature in French-speaking
America ? To answer these questions, Norbert Spehner embarked on a colossal research project more than ten years ago. The result ? Le Roman policier en Amérique française, the first analytical and critical guide to crime and detective fiction published between 1837 and June of 2000 by French-speaking Canadian authors, mostly from Quebec. Presenting an enlightening study of the origins of the genre itself and its many variants, this work also reviews 606 novels for adults, 350 YA novels, 34 pulp serials (some with hundreds of titles), 10 magazines and no less than 963 essays on the genre. If you add the 157 titles of Canadian novels translated from English, you get a total of more than 2000 references. Not bad for a genre that doesn't exist ! |
| Norbert
Spehner Le Roman policier en Amérique française 418 pages, $29.95 |
