Sara Paretsky’s Appropriation of Detective Fiction: Literary Subversions in Body Work

Abstract

The hard-boiled literary formula has been the focus of multiple postmodernist reappropriations. This subgenre of detective fiction has been rewritten through various literary subversions to capture a plurality of perspectives that were not contemplated in the original hyper-masculinized formula. Sara Paretsky is an American writer who has taken part in the reinterpretation of the hard-boiled narrative through a feminist approach. Through the protagonist of her works, V.I. Warshawski, the author is committed to innovating the perception of women in the crime novel. In this study, several literary subversions of the novel Body Work (2010) are explored in relation to the contemporary cultural context.

La fórmula literaria ‘hard-boiled’ ha sido objeto de múltiples readaptaciones postmodernistas. Este subgénero de ficción detectivesca ha sido reescrito a través de diversas subversiones literarias para plasmar una pluralidad de perspectivas que no se contemplaban en la hiper masculinizada fórmula original. Sara Paretsky es una escritora estadounidense que ha tomado parte en la reinterpretación de la narrativa ‘hard-boiled’ a través de un comentario feminista. Por medio de la protagonista de sus novelas, V.I. Warshawski, la autora se dedica a innovar la percepción de las mujeres en la novela negra. En este estudio, las diversas subversiones literarias de la novela Body Work (2010) son exploradas en relación con el contexto cultural contemporáneo.