Graduate Student, Modern Languages
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Dr Pierre-Philipppe Fraiture
Dr Sam Haigh |
About
An enthusiast for crime fiction, my undergraduate dissertation (Oxford Brookes) concentrated on the women in Pennac's Malaussene saga. My research MA, also from Brookes, considered 'The missing 'detective' in contemporary French crime fiction: two case studies, Didier Daeninckx and Fred Vargas.'.
My PhD research at Warwick will examine the crime novels of Fred Vargas, a medieval archaeologist, crime writer and political activist. She has achieved critical acclaim and popular success (see figures in Livres Hebdo), but her work has been the subject of few academic studies. My work will explore her particular perspectives on the crime genre, myths and reconstructing history, the feminine/feminist view and her interpretations of contemporary everyday life. Close textual analysis of a selection of novels and her non-fiction writing will show how she succeeds in pushing at the boundaries while remaining true to generic rules and traditions. Her contribution to contemporary French crime fiction gives her the deserved title of 'La reine du polar'.
