Subverting the gender, identity beyond sex and desire in three crime novels written by Caribbean female authors

Abstract

The crime novel has lived constant transformations since its origin. In the 21st century, the renewal that takes place at the hands of women, who have burst into a literary genre with a marked sexist character, stands out. It is not only about the incorporation of women as authors, characters and readers of this genre; but of a subversion that breaks the paradigms of the basic notion of identity, constituted according to Judith Butler by the triad of sex, gender and desire. Among the women who write crime novels and subvert these stereotypes, the authors of the Caribbean stand out, a region whose geographical, political and social characteristics allow the development of literature with a markedly subversive character. This article addresses how the characters in three novels subvert gender notions and present a fragmented identity, which breaks with the stereotype of the tough, macho, self-confident man; as well as that of the female victim, object of desire or femme fatale.