Nordic noir, also known as Scandinavian noir, is a genre of crime fiction usually narrated from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or the wider Nordic countries. It typically employs plain language, avoiding metaphor, and is set in bleak landscapes, producing a dark and morally complex mood in which tension is drawn between an outwardly still and bland social surface and underlying patterns of murder, misogyny, rape and racism.
Facts
Place of OriginThe genre grew out of Sweden's Martin Beck novels of the 1960s and had become an established literary genre across the Nordic countries by the 1990s. 1 Notable ExampleThe Martin Beck series of novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö is credited with breaking from earlier crime-fiction trends and pioneering the style that became Nordic noir. 1 Defining TraitNordic noir is a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view, set in Scandinavia or the Nordic countries, told in plain language without metaphor, and set against bleak landscapes. 1 Connections
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Nordic Noir (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or the Nordic countries
Origins section
the Martin Beck series of novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö "broke with the previous trends in crime fiction"
Origins section, opening sentence
most commentators agree that the genre had become well established as a literary genre by the 1990s
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