
Daniele Croci, Emanuele Monegato, Anna Pasolini (eds.) – Cattivi. Cattivissimi. Cattivi? – Mimesis, 2016
A collection of contributions that seeks to problematize the profile of a category of characters attributable to the crime fiction genre: the villains.
Through a detailed identikit of the criminal heroes, Daniele Croci, Emanuele Monegato, and Anna Pasolini highlight the new paradigms of contemporary crime, a result of dense networks of intertextual references that intersect elements belonging to geographically and historically heterogeneous literary traditions.
How is the growing ambiguity in the relationship between good and evil that is created with change and cultural hybridization reflected in the narratives? Is it still possible to talk about anti-heroes? With what terms can we frame the “new bad guys”? How do the villains of tradition dialogue with those of (post) modernity? Here is a volume that elicits meditations on the role of the anti-hero and the way in which the increasingly ambiguous relationship between good and evil is reflected in today’s narratives.
Cover image based on an illustration by Marco de Luca