Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T13:07:48.613Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Foreign settings in the Fascist-era giallo: Italian writers’ creative explorations of criminality and cultural difference

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2020

Brigid Maher Open the ORCID record for Brigid Maher [Opens in a new window]
Brigid Maher*
Affiliation:
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The 1930s saw an explosion in the publication of crime writing in Italy, but initially readers’ appetite for crime fiction was fed almost entirely by translated imports from the US, Britain and France. Even as publishers began promoting crime writing by Italians, foreign models and settings remained important, and several early Italian writers set their work in foreign countries. This article, which draws on both textual analysis and archival research, examines some foreign-set novels produced by Italian authors during the Fascist years, and seeks to identify the function and appeal of foreign settings in the depiction of criminality in that period. These books, peopled by exotic ‘Others’, comment on corruption, freedom of the press, cultural diversity, racial difference, policing, criminality, as much at home as abroad. The distant settings offered safety and freedom, as well as escapism or distraction, and the opportunity to experiment with genre.

Negli anni Trenta si verificò un grande aumento nella pubblicazione di gialli in Italia, ma all'inizio, a stuzzicare il palato dei lettori per questo tipo di scrittura furono quasi esclusivamente opere tradotte, importate da Stati Uniti, Gran Bretagna o Francia. Anche quando gli editori italiani cominciarono a promuovere la produzione giallistica domestica, modelli e ambienti stranieri rimasero importanti, e parecchi giallisti italiani ambientarono i loro libri in paesi stranieri. Utilizzando sia l'analisi testuale che ricerche d'archivio, questo articolo esamina alcuni gialli italiani scritti durante l'epoca Fascista e ambientati all'estero, con lo scopo di identificare la funzione e l'attrattiva dell'ambiente straniero nella rappresentazione della criminalità in quel periodo. Questi libri, popolati da esotici ‘Altri’, esprimono opinioni sulla corruzione, la libertà di stampa, la diversità culturale, le differenze razziali, la polizia, e la criminalità, sia in Italia che all'estero. Un'ambientazione lontana offriva sicurezza e libertà, oltre a un'evasione o una distrazione dalla realtà, e l'opportunità di sperimentare con il genere del giallo.

Keywords

giallocrime fictionFascismcensorshipforeignnessMondadori
Type
Special Issue
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 25 , Special Issue 2: Transcultural Exchanges and Encounters in Italy , May 2020 , pp. 163 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Association for the Study of Modern Italy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, J., Miranda, C. and Pezzotti, B.. 2012. ‘Introduction’. In The Foreign in International Crime Fiction: Transcultural Representations, edited by Anderson, J., Miranda, C. and Pezzotti, B., 1–6. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Billiani, F. 2006. ‘Identity and Otherness: Translation Policies in Fascist Italy’. CTIS Occasional Papers 3: 59–77.Google Scholar
Billiani, F. 2007. ‘Assessing Boundaries – Censorship and Translation: An Introduction’. In Modes of Censorship and Translation: National Contexts and Diverse Media, edited by Billiani, F., 1–25. Manchester: St Jerome.Google Scholar
Billiani, F. 2008. ‘Aesthetic Censorship? Readers’ Reports from Fascist Italy’. Frame 21 (2): 61–76.Google Scholar
Bini, B. 1989. ‘Il poliziesco’. In Letteratura italiana VII: Storia e geografia. III. L'età contemporanea, edited by Asor Rosa, A., 999–1026. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Bond, E. 2014. ‘Towards a Trans-National Turn in Italian Studies?’ Italian Studies 69 (3): 415–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camus Camus, C. 2010. ‘Censorship in the Translations and Pseudo-Translations of the West’. In Why Translation Studies Matters, edited by Hansen, G., Gile, D. and Pokorn, N.K., 41–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chu, M. 2000. ‘Someone Else's Southerner: Opposed Essences in the “Italian” Novels of Michael Dibdin, Magdalen Nabb, and Tim Parks’. In Crime Scenes: Detective Narratives in European Culture since 1945, edited by Mullen, A. and O'Beirne, E., 75–87. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Crovi, L. 2000. Delitti di casa nostra. Una storia del giallo italiano. Bologna: PuntoZero.Google Scholar
Crovi, L. 2002. Tutti i colori del giallo. Il giallo italiano da De Marchi a Scerbanenco a Camilleri. Venice: Marsilio.Google Scholar
d'Errico, E. 1936. Qualcuno ha bussato alla porta. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
d'Errico, E. 1937. Il fatto di via delle Argonne. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
d'Errico, E. 1938. La famiglia Morel. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Dunnett, J. 2002. ‘Foreign Literature in Fascist Italy: Circulation and Censorship’. TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction 15 (2): 97–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunnett, J. 2005. ‘Anti-fascism and Literary Criticism in Postwar Italy: Revisiting the mito americano’. In Culture, Censorship and the State in Twentieth-Century Italy, edited by Bonsaver, G. and Gordon, R.S.C., 109–119. London: Legenda.Google Scholar
Dunnett, J. 2011. ‘The Emergence of a New Literary Genre in Interwar Italy’. In Italian Crime Fiction, edited by Pieri, G., 6–26. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Erdmann, E. 2011. ‘Topographical Fiction: A World Map of International Crime Fiction’. The Cartographic Journal 48 (4): 274–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabre, G. 2007. ‘Fascism, Censorship and Translation’. Trans. O'Sullivan, C.. In Modes of Censorship and Translation: National Contexts and Diverse Media, edited by Billiani, F., 27–59. Manchester: St Jerome.Google Scholar
Gallo, C. 2002. ‘Carteggio inedito tra Lorenzo Montano e Arnoldo Mondadori: alle origini del “giallo” e di alcune collane Mondadori’. Atti dell'Accademia Roveretana degli Agiati 252 (series VIII, vol. II): 181–226.Google Scholar
Guagnini, E. 1979. ‘L’“importazione” di un genere: il “giallo” italiano tra gli anni Trenta e gli inizi degli anni Quaranta – Appunti e problemi’. In ‘Trivialliteratur’? Letterature di massa e di consumo, edited by Istituto di Filologia Moderna Università di Trieste, 435–458. Trieste: LINT.Google Scholar
Gundle, S. 1996. ‘Fame, Fashion, and Style: The Italian Star System’. In Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction, edited by Forgacs, D. and Lumley, R., 309–326. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jenco, C. 1939. La morte sul ‘Timor’. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
King, S. 2014. ‘Crime Fiction as World Literature’. Clues 32 (2): 8–19.Google Scholar
Maher, B. 2018. ‘Pseudotranslation’. In The Routledge Handbook of Literary Translation, edited by Washbourne, K. R. and Van Wyke, B., 382–393. Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mandrell, J. 1997. ‘“Experiencing Technical Difficulties”: Genre and Gender, Translation and Difference: Lourdes Ortiz, Maria Antònia Oliver, and Blanca Alvarez’. Journal of Narrative Technique 27 (1): 55–83.Google Scholar
Orsi, G., and Volpatti, L.. 1988. ‘Il giallo Mondadori dal 1929 al 1941’. In Il giallo degli anni Trenta, edited by Petronio, G., 277–282. Trieste: LINT.Google Scholar
Paoli, M. 2016. Giorgio Scerbanenco: Urban Space, Violence and Gender Identity in Post-War Italian Crime Fiction. Brussels: Peter Lang.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pezzotti, B. 2014. Politics and Society in Italian Crime Fiction: An Historical Overview. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.Google Scholar
Pieri, G. 2011. ‘Introduction’. In Italian Crime Fiction, edited by Pieri, G., 1–5. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar
Pistelli, M. 2006. Un secolo in giallo: storia del poliziesco italiano (1860–1960). Rome: Donzelli.Google Scholar
Rambelli, L. 1979. Storia del ‘giallo’ italiano. Milan: Garzanti.Google Scholar
Rambelli, L. 2016. ‘Finestra su Parigi’. In Qualcuno ha bussato alla porta, by d'Errico, E., 3–4. Alessandria: Falsopiano / Fogli volanti.Google Scholar
Robyns, C. 1990. ‘The Normative Model of Twentieth Century Belles Infidèles: Detective Novels in French Translation’. Target 2 (1): 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rundle, C. 1999. ‘Publishing Translations in Mussolini's Italy: A Case Study of Arnoldo Mondadori’. Textus: English Studies in Italy XII: 427–442.Google Scholar
Rundle, C. 2000. ‘The Censorship of Translation in Fascist Italy’. The Translator 6 (1): 67–86. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2000.10799056.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rundle, C. 2010. Publishing Translations in Fascist Italy. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Rundle, C. 2018. ‘Stemming the Flood: The Censorship of Translated Popular Fiction in Fascist Italy’. Perspectives 26 (6): 838–851. doi: 10.1080/0907676X.2018.1444646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scaggs, J. 2005. Crime Fiction. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scerbanenco, G. (1941) 2008. La bambola cieca. Palermo: Sellerio.Google Scholar
Scerbanenco, G. (1942) 2011. Il cane che parla. Palermo: Sellerio.Google Scholar
Sinibaldi, C. 2014. ‘Writing and Translating Crime Fiction during Italian Fascism’. Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) Blog, 2 September. doi: https://acis.org.au/2014/09/02/writing-and-translating-crime-fiction-during-italian-fascism (accessed 10 July 2019).Google Scholar
Somigli, L. 2005. ‘The Realism of Detective Fiction: Augusto De Angelis, Theorist of the Italian Giallo’. Symposium 59 (2): 70–83.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1934. L'unghia del leone. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1935. La bambola insanguinata. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1936. Uno, due, tre. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1937. La notte impossibile. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1938a. L'ombrellino viola. Il sesto supergiallo. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1938b. Sotto la cenere. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Spagnol, T.A. 1970. Memoriette marziali e veneree. Milan: M. Spagnol.Google Scholar
Spurio, F. 2011. ‘Censura e veleni fascisti: le traduzioni di Agatha Christie negli anni Trenta’. Tradurre 0 (Spring). https://rivistatradurre.it/2011/04/agatha-christie/ (accessed 10 July 2019).Google Scholar
Thompson, D. 1991. State Control in Fascist Italy: Culture and Conformity, 1925–43. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Varaldo, A. 1931. Il sette bello. Milan: Mondadori.Google Scholar
Welsch, Wolfgang. 1999. ‘Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today’. In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, edited by Featherstone, M. and Lash, S., 194–213. London: Sage.Google Scholar