Noir fiction

Noir fiction (or roman noir) is a literary genre closely related to hardboiled genre with a distinction that the protagonist is not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. Other common characteristics include the self-destructive qualities of the protagonist. A typical protagonist of noir fiction is dealing with the legal, political or other system that is no less corrupt than the perpetrator by whom the protagonist is either victimized and/or has to victimize others on a daily basis, leading to lose-lose situation.

The term originates as a cinematic one.Film noir refers to cinematic works influenced by novels of the hardboiled tradition, exhibiting postwar disillusionment and realism as influenced by German Expressionism. "Noir" was popularized as applied to fiction by editor Barry Gifford of the crime fiction publisher Black Lizard in the 1980s.

James M. Cain – also regarded as the third major figure of the early hardboiled genre – is regarded as an American pioneer of the noir genre. He debuted as a crime novelist in 1934. Other important American writers in the noir genre include Cornell Woolrich, Dorothy B. Hughes, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Charles Williams, and Elmore Leonard.

Mediterranean Noir refers to noir fiction in a Mediterranean setting. Sex, crime, and physical violence often figure prominently in Mediterranean Noir narratives. Social and historical issues specific to the region – particularly governmental corruption and instability, war, and racial strife – are frequently underlying plot considerations. Prominent authors of the movement include Jean-Claude Izzo, Andrea Camilleri, Massimo Carlotto, Eduardo Mendoza, Batya Gur and Enrico Teodorani.

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