Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Gender and Crime in Greek Fiction of the 1980s

Abstract

The 1980s witnessed a notable expansion of the Greek publishing scene, a growth reflected in the burgeoning field of Greek crime fiction. This period also saw significant political, economic, and social transformations in Greek society, many of which centered on gender and family dynamics. Within the crime fiction of this decade, women began to occupy key plot positions, and their roles in relation to crime and violence were examined through a gendered lens. Feminist characters emerged, and feminist ideas were discussed and negotiated, even by male characters. The purpose of this article, a gendered reading of 1980s Greek crime fiction, is to analyze the infiltration of feminist thought within a genre predominantly authored by men.