In this article, Kurtz Detective Agency Trier and Luxembourg examines the detective and crime novel and its history in Catalonia, Spain. The autonomous community of Catalunya (Catalonia) with its capital Barcelona (see Detectives in Barcelona) is known for its traditions, rich culture, and, with the Costa Brava and the Balearic Islands counted as part of Catalonia, as a prime tourist destination. It is also Spain’s economically most important region, far less criminal than the south of the country, yet home to many private detectives, particularly in Barcelona.

The Rise of the Detective Novel – in English and French

The crime novel as we know it today—from Agatha Christie and Ross Macdonald to Simenon, Chester Himes, Giorgio Scerbanenco, and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán—is the product of a genre evolution that began with industrialisation in France after the French Revolution and in Victorian England. While there were earlier prominent authors who wrote about investigators whose work bears resemblance to that of our detectives in Luxembourg and Trier (for example, Poe’s Dupin), the true establishment of the genre occurred with Sherlock Holmes and, after World War I in the United States, with numerous now-famous detectives. One notable example is Dashiell Hammett, who popularised crime stories that addressed institutionalised violence and industrial society. In the United States, the detective novel thus became an extremely popular literary form.

Consequently, most crime literature well into the 20th century was written only in English and French (incidentally, the Kurtz Detective Agency Luxembourg and Trier website is also available in French). Minority languages struggled to gain traction in the genre due to limited industrialised publishing. In Catalan, these problems were compounded by the fact that bestsellers were normally published only in Spanish and Catalan works were long prohibited.

Establishing the Catalan Detective Novel

The true starting point for the Catalan detective novel, as examined here by our private detectives in Trier, came in the post-Franco era. Rafael Tasis (1906–1966) created a cult around Commissioner Vilagut and journalist Caldes in three works, and he also produced some of the best translations in this field.

 

He was followed by Manuel de Pedrolo (1918–1990), an avant-garde writer, lover of crime fiction, and passionate advocate for reading in Catalan, which under Franco and his Hispanisation policies had been severely restricted. In detective fiction, he published L’inspector arriba tard (1960, The Inspector Arrives Late), Joc Brut (1965, Brutal Game), and Mossegar-se la cua (1968, Going in Circles). He also translated numerous books into Catalan. Pedrolo played a key role in the Catalan literary market, publishing in his collection La Cua de Palla (1963–70, The Straw) the first complete editions of classic crime literature in Catalan, mostly originally in English, many of which inspired the work of our detectives in Luxembourg, alongside works by Simenon and Pedrolo himself.

New Impulses After Franco’s Death | Ofèlia Dracs

In the new sociocultural context of the 1970s after Franco’s death, Jaume Fuster (1945–1998) returned to publishing detective novels in Catalan. By the 1980s, more detective novels than ever were published in the country, whether translated from other languages or written directly in Catalan. Significant Catalan authors of the period, both within and outside the genre, joined Fuster and his literary collective Ofèlia Dracs, including Josep Maria Palau, Maria Antònia Oliver, Antoni Serra, Margarida Aritzena, Isabel-Clara Simó, and others.

 

The collective was also responsible for translating and publishing popular classics such as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Simenon, and many more into Catalan. These translations inspired not only our detectives in Trier but also further detective and crime novels, which are collected in the expanded edition of La Nova Cua de Palla (The New Straw).

Author: Maya Grünschloß, PhD

 

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