Los inicios del policial argentino y sus márgenes: Carlos Olivera (1858-1910) y Carlos Monsalve (1859-1940)

Abstract

Many critics and historians of Argentine detective fiction mention the works of Carlos Olivera and Carlos Monsalve among the “antecedents” of this genre. However, they omit any specific reference to the literary texts of these authors, as well as the analysis of those tales considered to be “marginal contributions” and “tentative experiment within the genre”. Rodolfo Walsh, Donald Alfred Yates, Jorge Lafforgue and Jorge Rivera consider the decade of 1940 as the beginning of the literary genre in Argentina. In contrast with this tradition, this study traces the origin of the genre in the decade of 1870. In this context, I analyze the tales of Olivera and Monsalve, written and published during the decade of 1880, that are included in – or border on – the detective fiction genre. I examine these texts in connection with the literary series that determined the shape of the genre at the time, composed by the literary productions of Raúl Waleis, Eduardo L. Holmberg, Paul Groussac, Horacio Quiroga, Vicente Rossi, among others. I also study the detective fiction of these authors in light of the influences of the diverse national literatures.