The dominance of Nordic Noir in detective fiction

Noir in the North - Genre, Politics and Place has been published by Bloomsbury Academic. The book is edited by Gunnþórunnar Guðmundsdóttur, professor in literature at the University of Iceland Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies. The authors Yrsa Sigurðardóttir and Gunnar Staalesen write the foreword and coda.

Noir in the North discusses Nordic crime fiction and its strong position in detective fiction, film and television internationally for over two decades.  The authors discuss the genre from various angles analysing its characteristics and historical as well as geographical origin. The book furthermore includes an interview with Val McDermid on her experience of writing noir in the North.

Two academics from the University of Iceland, in addition to Gunnþórunn, contribute to the book. Daisy Neijmann, adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, writes the chapter Complex Nostalgias: North, Pastness and Community Survival in Arnaldur Indriðason's Strange Shores and Ann Cleeves' Blue Lightning, and Giti Chandra, specialist at RIKK - Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference, contributes the essay Dragon Tattoos, Crime, and the City: The Contemporary Epic.“