Abstract:
This dissertation, entitled La novela policiaca femenina hispánica: hacia un canon de tendencia posmodernista, examines 11 detective novels from Hispanic women writers of the present century in order to establish the emergence of a new literary canon. The works under study are Ritos de muerte (1996), Serpientes en el paraíso (2002), Un barco cargado de arroz (2004), Nido vacío (2007), and El silencio de los claustros (2009) by Spanish writer Alicia Giménez Bartlett; No me llames cariño (2004) by Spanish writer Isabel Franc; La mujer que sabía demasiado (2006) by Colombian writer Silvia Galvis; Son de Almendra (2006) by Cuban writer Mayra Montero; La muerte me da (2007) by Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza; Elena sabe (2007) by Argentinean writer Claudia Piñeiro; and Atajo al paraíso (2008) by Spanish writer Teresa Solana. These specific novels and authors were chosen because they provide a varied and contemporary transnational perspective on how Spanish-speaking women approach and appropriate the detective genre in the postmodern context. Therefore, this investigation offers an in-depth and critical analysis of these detective texts in light of their postmodern elements: the use of metafiction, intertextuality, satire and black humor, strong narrative experimentation, metaphysical and anti-detective elements, bodily and gender transgressions, and feminine representations of masculinity so as to demonstrate how they subvert the formulas and parameters of classical detective fiction. Considering how much the production and criticism of Hispanic crime literature has grown in the last two decades, there is a considerable lack of research in terms of the feminine contribution to the genre. This study then helps to fill this critical gap by offering a timely and needed perspective on the importance of women's writings within the field of Spanish and Latin American literary studies.
