Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction
This philosophical study of Latin American noir fiction poses the question: what if precarity and uncertainty aren’t just themes of the genre, but ways of being in the world? Emerging from a region immersed in violence, trauma, and political instability, the novela negra reveals not just disillusionment but a desire to adapt to, even dwell within, chaos. In the hands of writers like Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Bolaño, and Patricia Melo, savvy detectives and antiheroes navigate a world in which meaning constantly shifts and certainty is elusive. Blending literary analysis with philosophical inquiry, Larson draws on Heideggerian ontology to demonstrate how the noir novel becomes a mode of existence—grounded in its very groundlessness. Rather than offering resolution, these novels embody a paradoxical desire: to engage crisis while also adapting to it. In doing so, they become both ideological and pedagogical—existential fiction for an uncertain world.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
1148067093
Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction
This philosophical study of Latin American noir fiction poses the question: what if precarity and uncertainty aren’t just themes of the genre, but ways of being in the world? Emerging from a region immersed in violence, trauma, and political instability, the novela negra reveals not just disillusionment but a desire to adapt to, even dwell within, chaos. In the hands of writers like Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Bolaño, and Patricia Melo, savvy detectives and antiheroes navigate a world in which meaning constantly shifts and certainty is elusive. Blending literary analysis with philosophical inquiry, Larson draws on Heideggerian ontology to demonstrate how the noir novel becomes a mode of existence—grounded in its very groundlessness. Rather than offering resolution, these novels embody a paradoxical desire: to engage crisis while also adapting to it. In doing so, they become both ideological and pedagogical—existential fiction for an uncertain world.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
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Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction

Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction

by Erik Larson
Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction
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Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction

Groundless Noir: Ontology and Latin American Crime Fiction

by Erik Larson

Overview

This philosophical study of Latin American noir fiction poses the question: what if precarity and uncertainty aren’t just themes of the genre, but ways of being in the world? Emerging from a region immersed in violence, trauma, and political instability, the novela negra reveals not just disillusionment but a desire to adapt to, even dwell within, chaos. In the hands of writers like Ricardo Piglia, Roberto Bolaño, and Patricia Melo, savvy detectives and antiheroes navigate a world in which meaning constantly shifts and certainty is elusive. Blending literary analysis with philosophical inquiry, Larson draws on Heideggerian ontology to demonstrate how the noir novel becomes a mode of existence—grounded in its very groundlessness. Rather than offering resolution, these novels embody a paradoxical desire: to engage crisis while also adapting to it. In doing so, they become both ideological and pedagogical—existential fiction for an uncertain world.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781684485901
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Publication date: 05/12/2026
Series: Bucknell Studies in Latin American Literature and Theory
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)
Age Range: 16 - 18 Years

About the Author

About The Author
ERIK LARSON is an associate professor of Spanish at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he teaches courses on Latin American literature and culture. His research focuses on noir literature from Latin America at the intersection of philosophy and theory.

Hometown:

Seattle, Washington

Date of Birth:

January 1, 1954

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

B.A., University of Pennsylvania, 1976; M.S., Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 1978

Table of Contents

Note on Translations
Introduction: Worlds, Grounds, Coping, and Caring: Noir Attunement in the Latin American Novela Negra
Chapter 1: World-Literature, Postmodernism, and Tough-Call Decision Making in En Busca de Klingsor
Chapter 2: Intertextual Afterimages: The Novela Negra within a Global, Noir Mediascape
Chapter 3: Virtual Realities, Real Phenomenologies: Being-at-Odds through Ricardo Piglia
Chapter 4: Lessons in Noir Economics: Piglia, Piñeiro, and Melo
Chapter 5: Uncanny Inheritance, Thrownness, and the Weight of Legacy in Padilla’s Amphitryon
Chapter 6: Of Sleuths and States: Literary Crime Fiction as a Sovereign Act
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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