Using GIS to Measure the Geographical Shift from Urban to Rural Narratives in Catalan Crime Fiction at the Turn of the 20th Century

Catalan crime fiction has grown rapidly in the last 20 years, becoming one of contemporary Catalan literature’s most dynamic genres. This article examines its evolution from a geocritical perspective, focusing on the diversification of narrative spaces between 1954 and 2023. While Barcelona as a location has traditionally dominated Catalan noir, the genre has increasingly shifted toward other locations. Using quantitative and qualitative methods—including text mining, geoparsing, GIS visualisation, and close textual analysis—this study analyses 92 works to trace these shifts.

Interrogating prior scholarship highlighting the role of Pep Coll’s L’abominable crim de l’Alsina Graells (1999) in such shift this article demystifies its importance, and identifies two major periods of decentralisation instead are identified: the 1980s, with Jaume Fuster and Maria Antònia Oliver highlighting the País Valencià and Illes Balears, and the 2010s, marked by broader and spatially diversifying production by authors like Margarita Aritzeta, Teresa Solana, and Jordi de Manuel.

The study demonstrates GIS’s value in complementing traditional literary analysis, showing how macro-level spatial trends refine geocritical theories. By integrating distant and close reading, it offers a methodological blueprint for future research, advancing understanding of Catalan noir’s geographical evolution and the interplay of space, literature, and culture.