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‘Le feu est de retour dans la vallée’: The Noir Landscapes of Deindustrialization in Lorraine


 The region of Lorraine is often seen as paradigmatic of the social problems arising from deindustrialization in France. Noir novels set in the region offer rich re-imaginings of the landscapes of deindustrialization, both geographical and social. This article examines what noir aesthetics do to these landscapes, studying a corpus of novels from four writers. In the first section, the article looks at how the novels engage with deindustrialization through ruins and natural environments. In the second section, the article examines how Dominique Manotti’s Lorraine Connection critiques the policies of reindustrialization implemented in the region since the late 1980s. The article concludes with an analysis of how noir genre conventions allow the novels to critique the cruel optimism of reindustrialization.