A Case of Two Worlds. Identity and Displacement in Qiu Xiaolong’s Crime Fiction

Crime fiction, as a flexible literary form, can be fruitfully exploited for the depiction, problematization, and construction of alterity, especially by authors who accentuate cultural dialectics and processes of identity-making, as in the case of Chinese-American writer Qiu Xiaolong. After an overview of the features and transcultural significance of Qiu’s Inspector Chen series, I will focus on A Case of Two Cities (2006), in order to describe the narrative strategies adopted to portray displacement and to (de)construct identity. I will specifically analyze the portrayal of intercultural negotiation, the detached gaze on Chinese culture, and the encoding of native knowledge. By doing so, I will seek to emphasize the significance of such devices for the narrative construction, the depiction of the other and the familiar, and their role within Qiu Xiaolong’s artistic project.