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Nordic noir, also known as Scandinavian noir, is a genre of crime fiction usually written from a police point of view and set in Scandinavia or the Nordic countries. Nordic noir often employs plain language, avoiding metaphor, and is typically set in bleak landscapes. This results in a dark and morally complex mood, in which a tension is depicted between the apparently still and bland social surface and the patterns of murder, misogyny, rape, and racism the genre depicts as lying underneath.
Some of the best known Nordic noir authors are Jo Nesbø from Norway; Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson and Camilla Läckberg from Sweden; Jussi Adler-Olsen from Denmark; and Arnaldur Indriðason from Iceland.
The popularity of Nordic noir has extended to the screen, with TV-series such as The Killing, The Bridge, Trapped, and Bordertown. The styling of these series is also cited in several other non-Scandinavian TV shows, such as Wasteland and the Fargo TV series.
There are differing views on the origins but most commentators agree that the genre had become well established as a literary genre by the 1990s; Swedish writer Henning Mankell, who has sometimes been referred to as the father of Nordic noir, notes that the Martin Beck series of novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö broke with the previous trends in crime fiction and pioneered a new style: They were influenced and inspired by the American writer Ed McBain. They realized that there was a huge unexplored territory in which crime novels could form the framework for stories containing social criticism."
Henning Mankell's books on Kurt Wallander made the genre a mass phenomenon in the 1990s. Norwegian author Karin Fossum's books on Inspector Sejer were also highly influential and widely translated.
Until the 2010s, the genre had no particular name, but was sometimes referred to descriptively as Nordic crime fiction or Scandinavian crime fiction. Within the Nordic countries themselves, this is still the case. The terms Nordic noir and Scandinavian noir are used largely interchangeably in English. In the English-speaking world, the term Nordic noir was coined by the Scandinavian Department at the University College of London and gained further usage in the British media in the 2010s beginning with the airing of the BBC documentary called the Nordic Noir: The Story of Scandinavian Crime Fiction. It is said that Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy contributed to the popularity of Nordic noir among readers outside Scandinavian countries.
The Guardian also referred to The Killing as Nordic noir. These factors underscore that the term is considered typical of a phenomenon seen as uniting the viewpoint of foreign eye towards recognizable Nordic context.
Nordic noir remains a foreign term, as it is not normally used in the Nordic countries and has no equally established equivalent in the Scandinavian or other languages of the Nordic countries.
A description of Nordic noir cited that it is typified by a dimly lit aesthetic, matched by a slow and melancholic pace, as well as multi-layered storylines. It often features a mix of bleak naturalism and disconsolate locations, with a focus on the sense of place where bad things can happen. These were the distinguishing emotions of the series Bordertown, which were further combined with an atmosphere arising from the fear of Russia.
The works also owe something to Scandinavia's political system where the apparent equality, social justice, and liberalism of the Nordic model is seen to cover up dark secrets and hidden hatreds.
The term Nordic noir is also applied to films and television series in this genre, both adaptations of novels and original screenplays. Notable examples are The Killing, The Bridge, Trapped, Bordertown, Deadwind and Lakeside Murders.
More information: The Paris Review
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Examining a crime has always been an efficient
way to hold a mirror up to the contradictions
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