Deculturation and Multiculturality in Contemporary Noir Fiction. Bologna, Limoges, Thessaloniki

Abstract

The article aims to analyze the multicultural representation of Bologna, Limoges and Thessaloniki in contemporary noir fiction (1995-2015). The works analyzed represent several issues, such as social injustice and discrimination to the detriment of foreigners, which are often seen as a threat to social order and urban security. The social distinction between natives and immigrants is often accompanied by a spatial distinction. However, beyond the violence and the corruption of the cities, in these novels emerge also the fact that some characters accept multiculturalism as a possibility to live better, to benefit from possibilities of cultural enrichment, which are more numerous than this was possible in the past. Paradoxically, the anxieties and nightmares of contemporary society coexist with the awareness that humanity is made up of people of different origins and cultures. The three cities also become icons of urban cosmopolitanism, in which it is possible to diagnose the changes of identity of the inhabitants of contemporary cities by noticing the daily entanglements of negotiation between people from different cultural and social origins.