Criminal Cities

The Postcolonial Novel and Cathartic Crime

Molly Slavin

• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780813949574
• eBook ISBN: 9780813949581
• Topic: Letteratura
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della critica letteraria

Why does crime feature at the center of so many postcolonial novels set in major cities? This book interrogates the connections that can be found between narratives of crime, cities, and colonialism to bring to light the ramifications of this literary preoccupation, as well as possibilities for cultural, aesthetic, and political catharsis.

Examining late-twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels set in London, Belfast, Mumbai, Sydney, Johannesburg, Nairobi, and urban areas in the Palestinian West Bank, Criminal Cities considers the marks left by neocolonialism and imperialism on the structures, institutions, and cartographies of twenty-first-century cities. Molly Slavin suggests that literary depictions of urban crime can offer unique capabilities for literary characters, as well as readers, to process and negotiate that lingering colonial violence, while also providing avenues for justice and forms of reparations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface: Atlanta as Postcolonial Criminal City
• Introduction: Toward a Theory of Cathartic Crime
• 1. “The Phenomenon of Walking”: Mapping Postcolonial Criminal London
• 2. “Crime Is Crime Is Crime”: Belfast and Universalizing Narratives
• 3. Whiteness, Historical Fiction, and Australian Cities
• 4. “Shot through with Crime”: Bombay after Mumbai
• 5. Neoliberal Criminality: Post-Apartheid Johannesburg
• 6. “This Line Created a Country”: Nairobi, Father and Son
• 7. “His Memory Resists Ordering”: The Difficulty of Catharsis in Palestine
• Coda: Exit West, Brexit, and Migration
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index