Between afrocentrism and universality : detective fiction by black women

This paper focuses on mysteries written by the Afro-American women authors Barbara Neely and Valerie Wilson Wesley. Both authors place a black woman in the role of the detective - an innovative feature not only in the realm of female detective literature of the past two decades but also with regard to the current discourse about race and class in US-American society. This discourse is important because detective novels are considered popular literature and thus a mass product designed to favor commercial instead of literary claims. Thus, the focus is placed on the development of the two protagonists, on their lives as detectives and as black women, in order to find out whether or not and how the genre influences the depiction of Afro-American experiences. It appears that both of these detective series represent Afro-American culture in different ways, which confirms a heterogenic development of this ethnic group. However, the protagonist's search for identity and their relationships to white people could be identified as a major unifying claim of Afro-American literature. With differing intensity, the authors Neely and Wesley provide the white or mainstream reader with insight into their culture and confront the reader's ignorance of black culture. In light of this, it is a great achievement that Neely and Wesley have reached not only a black audience but also a growing number of white readers.

Level thesis:degree_level

master

Grantor dc:publisher

Universität Potsdam

Author dc:creator

• Schiller, Beate

• USA
• afroamerikanische Literatur
• Detektivgeschichten
• feministische Literatur
• detective fiction
• Afroamerican literature
• black women
• 1990s

Repository record source_url

https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/483

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kobv.de-opus4-uni-potsdam:483