Criminal Women in Contemporary French Crime Fiction - Gender, Genre and the Polar Feministe

An exploration of representations of female criminality in contemporary French crime fiction, this book offers a literary, sociological and feminist analysis of the stereotypes surrounding women and crime. Surveying how these stereotypes are both invoked and disrupted, it covers Pierre Lemaitre''s Alex , Fred Vargas''s Quand Sort la Recluse ( This Poison Will Remain ), Leila Slimani''s Chanson Douce ( Lullaby ) and Hannelore Cayre''s La Daronne ( The Godmothe ) in their English translations. Addressing the gap of scholarly interest in legal and cultural representations of female violence in crime fiction, Ciara Gorman evaluates the subversive ways in which archetypes of female criminality - ranging from the femme fatale to the witch, and from the mere fatale to the bitch - are deployed not as reductive shorthands about femininity, but as motors of innovation and resistance. The form and plot of each text is examined for its potential as a polar feministe (feminist thriller), a crime novel which weaves the concerns of feminism - be that the prevalence of sexual and sexist violence in society, or the legacy of misogynist representation of women in the crime genre as a whole. Criminal Women considers the female criminal character as a figure of opportunity, the point at which readers and writers alike may reassess their assumptions about female criminality, and about the feminist potential of crime fiction itself.>

Product details

• Authors: Ciara Gorman
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 19.02.2026
• EAN: 9781350529410
• ISBN: 978-1-350-52941-0
• No. of pages: 256
• Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Global Crime Narratives
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; French, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), LITERARY CRITICISM / European / French, LITERARY CRITICISM / Mystery & Detective, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Crime and mystery fiction, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary