Moronga, by Horacio Castellanos Moya, and the Divergence of Latin American Noir

Abstract

Abstract Taking Moronga (2018), by Salvadorian author Horacio Castellanos Moya, as a point of departure, this article focuses on the reinterpretation of mainstream crime fiction in Latin American terms. This new approach is made from both formal and thematic perspectives. Moronga is structurally fragmented; the traditional detective figure has disappeared, and the plot does not revolve around a single crime but denounces a society at large which is characterized by paranoid surveillance. The reinterpretation of the crime fiction genre in Latin American terms has opened up two different strands of noir: firstly, the so-called ‘post-neopolicial’ where crime is a mere backdrop to formal experimentation, and secondly, what Ricardo Piglia refers to as ‘ficción paranoica’ [paranoiac fiction]. Moronga is a good example of both these strands, making it an appropriate case study to analyse the ways in which Hispanic literature deviates from classic Anglophone crime fiction (particularly the North American hardboiled tradition).