RT Book, Section
T1 Voyoucracy in Benjamin Black's Irish Noir
A1 Pérez Vides, María Auxiliadora
K1 John Banville
K1 Crime fiction
K1 Derrida
K1 Secrecy
AB In this chapter, I contend that the Derridean term “voyoucracy” lends itself for the interpretation of the Quirke series, published by John Banville as Benjamin Black. The novels dwell on all the elements of connivance, and illegality hinted at by Derrida and also on the forces at work in practices of State secretiveness that have been widely explored by secrecy critics. Such postulates are particularly useful for the analysis of Elegy for April (2010) and April in Spain (2021), where Blackhighlights the artifices that pervaded Ireland’s capital city in that period. Through the story of the eponymous character April, that is introduced in the first book and revisited in the most recent one, the author examines the means whereby crimes could remain concealed under the auspices of the web of power and influence sustained by high-rank political and religious figures and the Irish newspapers. My main argument is that a vouyeocratic milieu permeates the texts, ultimately capitalising on the totalitarian, dogmatic, and undemocratic conditions of the mid-twentieth century order.
PB Peter Lang
SN 978-3-631-927744-1
YR 2026
FD 2026
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/28249
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/28249
LA eng
NO Pérez Vides, M.A.: Voyoucracy in Benjamin Black's Irish Noir. En: Juan L. Pérez-de-Luque, Paula Martín-Salván (eds.). Democracy, Secrecy and Dissidence in Contemporary Fiction in English. Peter Lang, 2026. p. 173-194
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 2 jul 2026