(no subject)

[melannen]

Anybody know any (fictional, but RL would also be great) female detectives who aren't white from the period between ~1880 and 1940? Anywhere in the world, in any period in any medium by anyone (in any language, though the existence of an English translation would be nice)? If she's not the actual detective, at least a major supporting character in a mystery novel or series? Preferably non-faily?

There's Judah Daniel, and some of Benjamin January's friends & family, but they're too early.

Kogoro Akechi was married, but I can't find anything in English about his wife. And a few minor characters in Amelia Peabody, but as far as I can tell they aren't really actively involved in the detectiving.

...surely there are some and I just don't know how to look?

Comments

How to Search

[kathmandu]

As to knowing how to search, meta is your friend. If you can find encyclopedias of mystery stories, or something like the Critical survey of mystery and detective fiction, those will cover lots of stories/series and may have handy indexes with entries for things like 'women detectives' or 'asian detectives'.

Re: How to Search

[melannen]

Yeah, I've been looking at indices published through various libraries and overviews that Google Books has on preview; I'm just not finding anything. 90% of 'em are with White detectives in America, England, or Commonwealth countries, and the ones set elsewhere are White detectives going elsewhere and being colonial.

I think at this point my best chance may be to look for stories that *aren't* in English-language Mystery canon : things that are too new/indy/obscure, things that are slipstream enough to have been filed under a different genre, or stories that came out of non-English-language writing communities that, if they do have English translation, are ending up among foreign-language books rather than mysteries. (Fr. ex, almost none of the mystery-genre sources I've found even mention Akechi, who's a classic Holmes pastiche and the opposite of obscure - but apparently only if you're Japanese or an anime fan.)