“Death in Duisburg. Italian crime fiction and the transnational evolution of a southern archetype”

As the first-ever case of a southern Italian mafia exporting its vendetta to another country, the Duisburg massacre of 2007, a conflict involving two rival ‘ndrangheta clans, shocked the European public. Because its cultural prominence, the incident inspired many cinematic and TV narratives. This article analyzes three recent Italian productions inspired by the Duisburg massacre: Una vita tranquilla (A Quiet Life) (Cupellini 2010); Gomorra – La serie (Gomorrah) – Season 2, Episode 2: Lacrime e sangue (Blood and Tears) (Sollima 2016); and Duisburg – Linea di sangue (‘Duisburg – Line of blood’) (Monteleone 2019). This article uncovers a formula behind the common narrative model of a war between feuding mafias that mixes echoes of the classical Italian brigantaggio and the effects of emigration on Southern Italian traditional culture.