In
the context of an attempt to understand the role of culture in the shaping of
European and non-European identity, this paper examines some of the issues surrounding
the representation of different national identities in texts belonging to what
might be considered a new European crime canon, and proposes methodologies
for analysing the construction of identities in popular culture. It addresses this general topic specifically in relation to the way ‘Self’ and
‘Other’ are constructed within the text and paratext, and perceived by readers.
Building on earlier work on representations of
Italians as ideal ‘southerners’ in the English-language crime fiction of
authors such as Michael Dibdin, Magdalen Nabb, Tim Parks and Donna Leon, and on
representations of non-European characters in the works of Italian crime
writers Carlo Lucarelli, Andrea Camilleri and Gianrico Carofiglio, I take as an
example the presentation of the Trieste-set novels of German author, Veit
Heinichen—translated across languages into Italian, Dutch, French, Greek,
Norwegian, Slovenian and Spanish, as well as across media into a popular series
of feature-length television films—which are particularly significant from an
‘identity’ perspective because of their border location.