Criminal Women in Contemporary French Crime Fiction
Gender, Genre and the Polar Féministe
Seiten
2026
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-52941-0 (ISBN)
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-350-52941-0 (ISBN)
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An interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which women’s violence, victimhood and villainy are portrayed in contemporary French crime fiction.
An exploration of representations of female criminality in contemporary French crime fiction, this book offers a literary, sociological and feminist analysis of the stereotypes surrounding women and crime. Surveying how these stereotypes are both invoked and disrupted, it covers Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex, Fred Vargas’s Quand Sort la Recluse (This Poison Will Remain), Leïla Slimani’s Chanson Douce (Lullaby) and Hannelore Cayre’s La Daronne (The Godmother) in their original French and their English translations. Addressing the gap of scholarly interest in legal and cultural representations of female violence in French crime fiction, Ciara Gorman evaluates the subversive ways in which archetypes of female criminality — ranging from the femme fatale to the witch, and from the mère fatale to the ‘bitch’ — are deployed not as reductive shorthands about femininity, but as motors of innovation and resistance. The form and plot of each text is examined for its potential as a polar féministe (feminist crime fiction), a crime novel which incorporates the concerns of feminism — be that the prevalence of sexual and sexist violence in society, or the legacy of misogynist representations of women in the crime genre as a whole. Criminal Women considers the female criminal character as a figure of opportunity, the point at which readers and writers alike may reassess their assumptions about female criminality, and about the feminist potential of crime fiction itself.
An exploration of representations of female criminality in contemporary French crime fiction, this book offers a literary, sociological and feminist analysis of the stereotypes surrounding women and crime. Surveying how these stereotypes are both invoked and disrupted, it covers Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex, Fred Vargas’s Quand Sort la Recluse (This Poison Will Remain), Leïla Slimani’s Chanson Douce (Lullaby) and Hannelore Cayre’s La Daronne (The Godmother) in their original French and their English translations. Addressing the gap of scholarly interest in legal and cultural representations of female violence in French crime fiction, Ciara Gorman evaluates the subversive ways in which archetypes of female criminality — ranging from the femme fatale to the witch, and from the mère fatale to the ‘bitch’ — are deployed not as reductive shorthands about femininity, but as motors of innovation and resistance. The form and plot of each text is examined for its potential as a polar féministe (feminist crime fiction), a crime novel which incorporates the concerns of feminism — be that the prevalence of sexual and sexist violence in society, or the legacy of misogynist representations of women in the crime genre as a whole. Criminal Women considers the female criminal character as a figure of opportunity, the point at which readers and writers alike may reassess their assumptions about female criminality, and about the feminist potential of crime fiction itself.
Ciara Gorman is a Teaching Fellow in French in the School of Language, Cultures and Linguistics at University College Dublin, Ireland.
Introduction: Myths and Mirrors: Narrating Female Criminality in Contemporary French Crime Fiction
Chapter One: Fatal Attraction: The Serial Killer and the Femme Fatale in Pierre Lemaitre’s Alex
Chapter Two: ‘Une femme martyre et meurtrière’: Confronting the Witch in Fred Vargas’s Quand sort la recluse
Chapter Three: Inimical Intimacy: At Home with the Mère fatale in Leïla Slimani’s Chanson douce
Chapter Four: On ne naît pas garce: The Gangster and The Bitch in Hannelore Cayre’s La Daronne
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 19.2.2026 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Bloomsbury Studies in Global Crime Narratives |
| Verlagsort | London |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 234 mm |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-350-52941-9 / 1350529419 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-350-52941-0 / 9781350529410 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
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