ITALIAN CRIME FICTION and the GLOBAL PENAL STATE Francesco
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ITALIAN CRIME FICTION AND THE GLOBAL PENAL STATE Francesco Bratos A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies. Chapel Hill 2021 Approved by: Serenella Iovino Roberto Dainotto Maggie Fritz-Morkin Federico Luisetti Ennio Rao © 2021 Francesco Bratos ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Francesco Bratos: Italian Crime Fiction and the Global Penal State (Under the direction of Serenella Iovino) This dissertation analyzes contemporary Italian crime fiction’s success, relating it to the penal system’s growing centrality in the Italian (and global) political, social, and cultural scene. Although crime literature’s great popularity is commonly accepted as a fact, literary criticism has rarely examined the reasons for this long-standing success. Combining an analysis of the Italian publishing market and a study of some socio-cultural dynamics that have affected the world of politics, the judiciary, and the media in the last thirty-forty years of Italian history, this dissertation tries to explain the fortune of crime fiction abandoning purely stylistic, psychologizing and sociologizing approaches. In this sense, crime fiction is seen as a point of contact between instances and powers capable of shedding light on some critical dynamics of contemporary Italian society, such as social fears, the institutional clash between state powers, the media’s role in modern trials. It emerges that crime fiction, being an enormously varied and profoundly flexible genre, is directly related to all these aspects. Although this link with reality influences a large part of contemporary crime fiction production, it is particularly evident in the work of many real-life magistrates, police officers, and investigative journalists who have turned into successful crime fiction writers. The composite universe of crime fiction seems to be unified by a shared intent: the search for truth, be it historical, political, or judicial. After all, the root of this type of literature’s success could lie precisely in its ability to respond to this too often ignored primary need. iii To my two miracles, who inspire me and encourage me to be the best version of myself. I would not have made it without you by my side. To my mischievous, strong heart. To my loved ones, and to new beginnings. I would also like to thank the Department of Romance Studies and all the fantastic people I met on this long journey. It would be impossible to name them all, but I remember the faces, voices, and friendly smiles of all of them. Thanks to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for this unique opportunity, which seemed almost impossible when I first got into that flight and crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I will always cherish the beautiful North Carolina sky. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: WHAT MAKES CRIME FICTION SO POPULAR?.............................................. 8 Numbers Don’t Lie: Measuring Italian Crime Fiction’s Success .......................................................... 10 Copy in Italy: The Market of Foreign Rights .......................................................................................... 19 “Libri Gialli” Mondadori: The Ennobling of a Genre ........................................................................... 21 e/o and Europa: Two Pioneering Projects .............................................................................................. 22 Italian Crime Fiction and Transmediality ................................................................................................. 27 Italian Crime Fiction on TV ....................................................................................................................... 32 Misfit novels: Italian Crime Fiction and Academia ................................................................................ 38 The World Starts to Notice ........................................................................................................................ 46 Sub-Genres: When Literary Criticism Meets the Market ....................................................................... 47 Crime Fiction Is Essentially a Hybrid Genre .......................................................................................... 50 What Happened to Crime and Punishment? ........................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER TWO: “GUARDIE E LADRI” ............................................................................................... 54 Walking on a Thin Line .............................................................................................................................. 54 Police on My Back: Where Lies The Police’s Power? ............................................................................ 58 Insiders .......................................................................................................................................................... 67 v What We Talk About When We Talk About Crime .............................................................................. 81 ACAB by Carlo Bonini ............................................................................................................................... 87 Maurizio De Giovanni’s The Bastards of Pizzofalcone ................................................................................ 97 CHAPTER THREE: JURISTS AND WRITERS .................................................................................. 104 From the Rear to the Trenches: The Magistrates’ Overexposure ..................................................... 106 Politics Strikes Back.................................................................................................................................. 111 Media and Justice: Which Authority for the Magistrates? .................................................................. 115 I giudici parlano attraverso le sentenze (The Verdict Should Speak for The Judge) ...................... 117 The juridical field and the right to determine the law ......................................................................... 120 Jurists and cop writers .............................................................................................................................. 126 A Push to Rewrite History: The Case of The Magliana Gang ........................................................... 132 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................ 142 WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................................................... 149 vi INTRODUCTION A relentless fascination for crime has always traversed contemporary Italian literature. From Umberto Eco’s postmodern masterpiece Il nome della rosa (1980) to Roberto Saviano’s Gomorra (2006) crime characterizes a vast and heterogeneous portion of recent Italian novels. This widespread interest even determined a reassessment of the Italian literary field, allowing access to a whole range of discourses and narratives. Journalism and its themes, television and new media, sociological investigation, and advertising have become explicit references for much of con- temporary Italian literature. Think, for example, of the young writers known as the “Cannibali.”1 In the 1990s, they blended genre literature, especially horror, splatter, and cyberpunk, with television and advertisement language. Their work shows a kind of crime that takes on the atrocious but gro- tesque appearance of television reports. These young writers portrayed the crudest criminal events immersing them in the anesthetizing youth imagery of TV shows, video games, and music videos. Conversely, many recent Italian books relate criminal events with the author’s life experiences. In these cases, crime becomes a device for reinterpreting reality, combining autobiography and fiction, literature and investigative journalism, genre fiction and memoir. On top of that, the Italian book market has seen the affirmation of proper crime fiction writ- ers such as Andrea Camilleri, Carlo Lucarelli, Maurizio De Giovanni, Marcello Fois, to name but a 1 “Cannibali” is an editorial label that refers to a generation of young authors who made their debut in the mid-1990s. Some of them were included in the successful anthology, Gioventù cannibale (Cannibal Youth, 1996) edited by Daniele Brolli. Among the best-known authors who participated in this project there were Niccolò Ammaniti, Luisa Brancaccio, Alda Teodorani, Aldo Nove, Daniele Luttazzi, and Andrea G. Pinketts, but authors such as Tiziano Scarpa and Isabella Santacroce also belong to that generation. 1 few protagonists of a thriving trend in Italian literature. These and other authors’ success is so significant that it permanently crosses the narrow Italian literary field’s boundaries. In short, Ital- ian crime fiction seems to find consensus even outside national borders, where it is systematically translated and appreciated (Kington). While interest in crime has always characterized popular culture and literature, its omnipres- ence and the analytical and technical detail of modern crime fiction