Detectives in the Literary Market : Statistical Perspectives on the Boom in Swedish Crime Fiction

• Crime novels from Scandinavia are commercial successes all over the world. In Sweden, the dominance of the crime genre on the book market is even more significant. According to Swedish book trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel, twelve of the top twenty books in the bestseller charts of fiction in 2010, were domestic crime novels. This has started intensive debates, where crime novels are blamed for out-competing other genres. Domestic crime fiction has had a commanding position of the commercial side of Swedish publishing business in the 2000s, but this has not always been the case. When did this literary genre-takeover take place? How did it take place? How can it be explained? Even though some research concerning Scandinavian crime fiction has been carried out over the last couple of years, no one has mapped the book market phenomenon as such. This article aims to fill this gap by offering a neutral and extensive description on the role and position of crime fiction in Swedish publishing between 1977 and 2010.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Literary Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Swedish crime fiction

statistics

book trade

publishing

sociology of literature

book history

bibliometrics.

Literature

Litteraturvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)