Re: RARA-AVIS: noir vs hardboiled
Robert E. Skinner (rskinner@mail.xula.edu)
Tue, 08 Dec 1998 09:19:18 -0600
> I thought the critics coined the term film noir to go
with Serie Noir,
the series of books which was the place, IIRC, where Woolrich's
Black
books were all printed.>
Gallimard's Serie Noir actually postdates the coining of the
phrase
"film noir." According to my colleage at the Sorbonne, Michel
Fabre,
"roman noir" became the slang term for "policier", which is the
more
proper French name for "detective novel." It happens that
Gallimard had
another series, Du Monde Entier, which was nicknamed "Serie
Blanche" for
its white covers. The Serie Noir all had flat black paper wraps
with
only the title and author's name on them. I believe that the
Serie Noir
made its debut in the very early 1950s and featured Hammett and
Chandler
novel among its first titles. By the time Chester Himes won the
Grand
Prix de la litterature policier in 1957 for his "La reine des
pommes"
(For Love of Imabelle/A Rage in Harlem in the States), it was
well
established as a series dominated by translated American
novels. Himes,
was, incidentally, the first non-French speaker to win that
particular
award.
--
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Robert E. Skinner, Director
Xavier University of Louisiana Library
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