Meny

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figure

Ganesh Ghote

Gender: Male

A pleasant, if rather naïve police detective in Bombay, India, who has great respect for his self-important superiors and his temperamental, beautiful wife Protima. Ganesh Vinayak Ghote loves her and their son Ved – and his job. He is usually called in when a mysterious and bizarre crime has been committed, and with great patience – and quite a lot of luck – he finds the answers in a row of novels...

Further reading