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This essay examines the use of the road narrative and the hard-boiled detective genre in the 1999 novel by Argentine post-boom writer Mempo Giardinelli, El décimo infierno. The conjunction of these two narrative models allegorizes the national and institutional violence embedded in the political, judicial, and social practices throughout the history of contemporary Argentina. Although the novel takes place after the military dictatorship, violence plays a role as a visible and metaphoric discourse, which represents the fundamental flaws of a democratic transition that remains in state of crisis. On the one hand, this paper discusses how El décimo infierno exploits the motif of the journey as a subversive and symbolic displacement to the margins of society not only geographically, but also legally and morally. On the other hand, Giardinelli uses the criminal universe created by the novela negra to approach the contradictions and ambiguities of the Latin American reality in the context of failed globalized and postmodern cultures. The detective genre also works as a fictional strategy to explore the national imaginary, the limits of violent human behaviour, and the emergence of a problematic value system that blurs the frontiers between reader and narrator, good and evil, love and hate, victims and culprits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of WFOT Bulletin is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)