Rewriting wrongs : French crime fiction and the palimpsest / edited by Angela Kimyongür and Amy Wigelsworth.

Papers originally presented at a conference "Rewritings Wrongs: French Crime Fiction and the Palimpsest," held Sept. 14, 2012 at Durham University.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface / David Platten -- Introduction / Angela Kimyongür and Amy Wigelsworth -- Figuring memory as palimpsest : rereading cultural memories of Jewish persecution in French crime fiction about the Second World War / Claire Gorrara -- "Un pas sé qui ne passe pas" : un mystère sans cesse redécouvert / Sophie Watt -- Arsène Lupin : rewriting history / Emma Bielecki -- Du récit à l'envers au écit de l'envers : the imprint of the palimpsest in Simenon / Christine Calvet -- Paris as rewrite : getting away with it in Léo Malet's "XVe arrondissement" / Alistair Rolls -- An overwritten mystery : Balzac, television and 'Une ténébreuse affaire' / Andrew Watts -- Enigmas, erasures and enquêtes : Camille Laurens and the palimpsest / Adrienne Angelo -- Taking background research too far? : Caryl Férey's cross-cultural borrowings / Ellen Carter -- Filatures de soi : detectives, disappearances and deceit in the crime autofictions of Calle, Laurens and Nothomb / Elise Hugueny-Léger -- The many-layered palimpsest : metafiction, genre fiction and Georges Perec's "53 jours" / Simon Kemp -- Finishings off : murder à la Malet in Simsolo's "Les derniers mystères de Paris" / Amy Wigelsworth.

"Rewriting Wrongs: French Crime Fiction and the Palimpsest furthers scholarly research into French crime fiction and, within that broad context, examines the nature, functions and specificity of the palimpsest. Originally a palaeographic phenomenon, the palimpsest has evolved into a figurative notion used to define any cultural artefact which has been reused but still bears traces of its earlier form. In her 2007 study The Palimpsest, Sarah Dillon refers to 'the persistent fascination with palimpsests in the popular imagination, embodying as they do the mystery of the secret, the miracle of resurrection and the thrill of detective discovery'. In the context of crime fiction, the palimpsest is a particularly fertile metaphor. Because the practice of rewriting is so central to popular fiction as a whole, crime fiction is replete with hypertextual transformations. The palimpsest also has tremendous extra-diegetic resonance, in that crime fiction frequently involves the rewriting of criminal or historical events and scandals. This collection of essays therefore exemplifies and interrogates the various manifestations and implications of the palimpsest in French crime fiction"--Provided by publisher.

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