Importance of Cultural Elements in Alexander McCall Smith’s Detective Fiction
Jana Waldnerova
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2015.08.03.41-48
Abstract
The text presents unusual features of popular Alexander McCall Smith’s African detective stories, in which cultural elements convey humanity. Culture and especially African collectivist culture included in the core of these stories create milieu that enables the writer to avoid murders, which are usually basic conflict conveying vehicles in this genre. Although McCall Smith’s African books contain conventional formal elements of detective stories, they show a very low level of tension altogether with other peculiarities. This text compares structure and elements of classical detective stories with those from McCall Smith’s books to disclose their true essence.
Key words
African detective story, collectivist culture, mystery, tension, crime, investigation, revelation, suppression of tension
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