A journey through Italian crime fiction: Rome (part one)

SBS Italian

From Gadda to Maraini, the Italian capital is the backdrop and the protagonist of many gialli books.

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Published 9 November 2019 11:15am

By Magica Fossati

Source: SBS

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From Gadda to Maraini, the Italian capital is the backdrop and the protagonist of many gialli books.

Our series dedicated to the genre of gialli takes us through various Italian cities, from North to South, from the mainland to the islands. This time we go to Rome with our tour guide in this "Italian journey", Dr Barbara Pezzotti.

Gialli are Italian crime fiction books. The name comes from the covers of a popular Italian series of crime fiction stories launched by publisher Mondadori in 1929, which were yellow (in Italian: giallo).

Reading list about Rome suggested by Barbara Pezzotti (part one)

Carlo Emilio Gadda, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana. Milano: Garzanti, 1957.
Dacia Maraini, Voci. Milano: Rizzoli, 1994.

Barbara Pezzotti is a Monash University lecturer and the author of the book The Importance of Place in Contemporary Italian Crime Fiction: A Bloody Journey, published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press in 2012.