CADÁVERES EN EL ARMARIO: EL POLICIAL PALIMPSÉSTICO EN LA LITERATURA ARGENTINA CONTEMPORÁNEA

• Main Author: Di Paolo, Osvaldo
• Format: Others
• Published: UKnowledge 2011
• Subjects: Detective Fiction; Crime Film; Yellow Press; Murder Cases; Argentina; Latin American Literature; Women's Studies
• Online Access: http://uknowledge.uky.edu/gradschool_diss/36; http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=gradschool_diss

This dissertation investigates the emergence of detective fiction and film from 1994 to the present. The corpus appears during the government of Carlos Menem and its intent to insert Argentina into a globalized economy. Poverty, insecurity and violence prevail in the Argentine society and ten detective novels, based on real-life murders, appear in 1994. Consequently, I explore each murder case, beginning with the newspaper article, and trace its transformation into short fiction, novel and/or film. The articles about the homicides follow the tendencies of the sensationalist yellow press. The writers and film directors, however, transform those stories, following and also subverting the characteristics of the classic detective fiction or the hard-boiled. In doing so, these recreations of the murder cases aim to denounce or criticize specific aspects of Argentine society: domestic violence, discrimination, stigmatization and corruption, among others.