The state we’re in: Global politics and economics in the novels of Dominique Manotti

Dominique Manotti’s novels move far beyond the limits of nation to explore the complex intersections between global capitalism and state power within, and beyond, French borders. In works, such as Lorraine Connection and Affairs of State, Manotti uses crime fiction to address such issues as the arms trade, human trafficking and the takeover of French companies by foreign interests. By starting with a single event and pursuing connections between individuals and institutions until the ‘bigger picture’ is finally revealed, Desnain examines how Manotti uses the conventions of crime fiction for a very specific purpose: to enable the reader to understand the wider global implications of current affairs within France while, on a wider level, denouncing the failures and abuses of capitalism inside, and beyond, France’s borders. In doing so, Desnain argues, Manotti redefines crime not as a unique event that can, in turn, be tackled and punished by the forces of the state, but as part of a global system where it is increasingly hard to distinguish the legal and illegal, and where the police and other agents of the state are increasingly powerless to intervene.