This course investigates the history of Italian crime fiction, from its tentative birth in the 1930s to its increasing importance in the postwar period and the 1990s in particular. You will study the principal theoretical debates surrounding detective and noir fiction and apply them to the close study of four novels. Issues which will be single out during the course comprise: the link between Italian crime fiction and the tradition of impegno [the socio-political engagement of the writer]; the representation of the city in crime narrative; and the representation of the Italian South, especially the Sicilian Mafia.