Deckardrottningar kontra deckarkungar

Abstract

This article deals with the successful Swedish crime writers and the gendered aspects of how they are marketed towards the readers in the 2000s. The purpose is to show how Swedish publishers follow distinct gender patterns in their marketing of crime fiction, and to discuss how this affects the responses to male and female crime novelists in cultural and medial landscapes. The empirical material consists of 153 Swedish crime novels, published in paperback between 1998 and 2011. Theoretically, the article connects to the field of book history insofar as the printed book itself is seen as important when it comes to how literary works are perceived by their readers. The results show that male and female authors of crime fiction in general have been marketed recognizably different in almost all possible ways. In the books’ extra materials and other author-centred peritexts, female authors are associated with the private and the family related. Male authors, on the other hand, are most often described as proficient, well writing and engaged in social criticism. Furthermore, the book covers are clearly gendered: covers by male authors are darker, more serious and more traditional to the crime genre; covers by female authors are brighter, more “fun” and reminiscent of chick lit rather than of traditional crime fiction. The main conclusion is that the gender gap shown in these paperbacks support and maintain the stereotype that male and female authors write different types of crime fiction, with male authors being valued the most. The paratextual division of male and female crime writers, thus, upholds the established and gendered hierarchy in the genre.