James Shea

As a former Head of English and now Senior Lecturer in English and Education I have a strong interest in a wide range of areas within English literature. In particular, I have an interest in the naturalist tradition (Zola, Steinbeck, etc.) alongside classic mid and post war roman noir (James Cain, etc.). By exploring some of these themes, tropes and styles and centering the fiction around the Spanish Costas where an underclass of workers, immigrants and criminals blur lines between each other it is possible to create the genre of Costa Noir. The stylistic tones of pulp fiction and naturalism along with the fast moving plots of short sensationalist events all combine to create literature centered around characters that we only ever usually view as two dimension detractions to the honey dewed advertising landscape of Spain.