Juan Anguera, alias Flanagan: Ironic Hard-boiled Hero

  • Louise Salstad North Carolina State University

Abstract

Juan Anguera, aka Flanagan, is the autodiagetic narrator of a best-selling series of adolescent novels by Catalan writers Andreu Martín and Jaume Ribera. Critics sometimes refer to the series as a parody of the novela negra, or hard-boiled detective novel, especially, though not exclusively, that of Raymond Chandler, whose private-eye hero, Philip Marlowe, is Flanagan's chief role model. The books certainly fall within the genre of the detective novel for adolescents, and they are definitely funny. But are they parodies, and if so, of what kind?

Author Biography

Louise Salstad, North Carolina State University
David Beagley is Lecturer in Children's Literature and Literacy at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, Victoria, Australia, where he teaches units in Genres, History, Australian and Post-colonial children's literature. He has previously taught in secondary schools, and has been a school and university librarian.
Section
Alice's Academy