- About Sciascia, I second Mario's comments. I know at least
two of his books that are part of the territory we explore in
R-A; if they are not real hard-boiled per se they are
certainly noirish. This author wrote many of his books as a
reaction against the institutional corruption in Italy during
the "Years of lead" (60s-70s). As I read them in French
translation, I do not know the English titles.
- Jean-Claude Izzo -a French author as you may know- came
rather late to HB/Noir and died too early to develop his full
potential (and as far as I know, he died of illness!). His
first novel of this genre: 'Total Kh鯰s'
(title could be translated as : Total Chaos) is a first class
novel, very noir, pessimistic and tough. This book is the
first of a trilogy with the
"commissaire Fabio Montale" (=chief of a police district), in
Marseille. The integration of the city (Marseille) in Izzo's
stories is rather original, as it becomes a real "actor" (and
not just a detailed background, as in HB/Noir tradition).
However, the two other books ('Chourmo'and
'Solea') are not as good as the first one- IMO. If you read
French you could check out my reviews for these 3 books in
POLAR NOIR (chapter: Carnets Noir), at: http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
- Yasmina Khadra is something special due to the profile of
the author! He's a man, and this was not obvious until end
1999 when he came openly to explain his life, as the pseudo
is made with two female names, in fact the given names of his
wife. Real name: Mohamed Moulessehoul. He's Algerian and was
in the Algerian Army since his young days (in 1955, 9 years
old, sent in a kind of army academy) because he was
"rejected" by his family. His vocation was to be a writer, so
he wrote (general literature, in Arabian and under his real
name) still being in the army (where he finishes as a high
rank officer), and as it was not well accepted by this
authority, he stopped publishing in Algeria (later it even
became worse, when the army was controlling the government-
since 1992 after a "coup d'鴡t" against the chaos created by
the actions of the rising integrists, as you may know). He
participated to the bloody civil war against the integrists.
As he could wrote also in French, he started to publish real
Noir in France under his pseudo (first book in France
'Morituri' featuring the
"commissaire Lobb" as central character- published in 1997),
by fear of reprisals. Today he continues to publish in French
Some of his French novels are very violent, and most are in
our HB/Noir territory. No longer in the Algerian Army, he
lives now in Mexico.
I do not know the other authors.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6389
At 07:39 21-01-03 -0000, you wrote:
>I'm interested in finding out if any of the following
authors are worth
>pursuing. Are they hardboiled/noir? If so, are they
any good? Any
>opinions or information welcome.
>
>Leonardo Sciascia
>Jean-Claude Izzo
>Massimo Carlotto
>Yasmina Khadra
>Giorgio Scerbanenco
>Santo Piazzese
>Jorge Ibarquengoitia
>Shane Maloney
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>Al
>
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