Héctor Belascoarán Shayne: the space of the city and hegemonic masculinities

Abstract

In this work we intend to approach a series of novels by Paco Ignacio Taibo II starring Héctor Belascoarán Shayne, a character in which there are resonances from the hardboiled fiction. We will try to draw a profile of the famous detective from a genre perspective, highlighting in particular the concept of masculinity. We are interested in investigating how this figure and other characters that populate the fictional universe built by the author embody a distancing or a follow-up / development of the “género” in its two of senses: as an identity matrix (genre) and as a literary form (gender). Our corpus is made up of the novels Días de combate (1976), No habrá final feliz (1989) and Muertos incómodos (2005), the last one written with Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). In constant movement through Mexico City, a space where impunity reigns and where justice becomes impossible, the detective shows the sordidness of crimes that at times seem to be solved beforehand, underlying the idea that all crime is a state crime. While living his adventures, Belascoarán Shayne presents to the readers an outline of theorizing about masculinity, being Mexican and the detective fiction genre.