Mapping Turkish Crime Fiction

Résumé

Crime Fiction is inaccurately argued to be a Western literary genre. Roots of Crime Fiction can be found in non-Western literature. Arguably, it is a global phenomenon that exists in ancient books. Turkish Crime Fiction specifically and Middle Eastern Crime Fiction broadly, remains one of the least studied literary genres. Scholastic research on Turkish Crime Fiction are very limited and this theme of academic enquiry offers challenging and interesting endeavours as it engages with complex and seemingly unrelated concepts like Sufism, nationalism, trauma, political identity and identity politics. This article is, thus, attempting to contribute to the existing scholarship on Crime Fiction broadly and Turkish Crime Fiction more specifically. It argues that Turkish Crime Fiction is more ancient than Western Crime Fiction which arguably emerged in the nineteenth century, and was advent by Edgar Allan Poe. In this article, it is suggested that Turkish Crime Fiction dates back to the pre-Islamic era, between the eighth and tenth centuries. It is further argued in this paper that Turkish Crime Fiction is unique in the sense that it engages with complex concepts that tackle paradoxical issues like the Kemalist-Islamist dichotomy, religion and secularism, and nationalism and politics. In addition, in the existing canon of Turkish Crime Fiction, Istanbul seems to act as a hub of Turkish Crime.  The symbolic role of the location of this city is discussed at length in this article as it offers a window into understanding one of the major characteristics of Turkish Crime Fiction. These notions are explored using genealogical and analytical approaches. This article concludes that more research on Crime Fiction is needed,  and that the relation between concepts of religion, secularism, modernity and nationalism ought to be explored in relation to Turkish Crime Fiction. Finally, this paper calls for more academic attention and research on Crime Fiction to liberate it from the classical classification of Crime Fiction as a sophisticated “means of entertainment”, and to clear it from being guilty of marketability literature.