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Nestor Burma

kevinburtonsmith

Created by Léo Malet
(1909-96)

Mesdames et messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, may we introduce to you France’s answer to Chandler’s Marlowe, the one and only, NESTOR BURMA—detective de choc!

Malet was heavily influenced by Chandler, Hammett, et al, and Burma’s first appearance, in 120, rue de la gare (1943), ushered in a whole new era in French detective fiction. But Burma is more than just a transplanted American dick in a beret.

Burma was a former POW, returned to a still-occupied Paris after a stint in a a German Stalag, and the world has–to put it mildly–changed. A former anarchist, with roots in radical politics, his life had already been precarious enough before the war, although his cynicism–and his pipe-smoking–seems to have survived intact. Now it’s a time and a place that few have dared to touch–namely, occupied France, and the years just after. Nestor is the owner and sole operator of the Fiat Lux Detective Agency in Paris, in a France still very much under the thumb of the Nazis and the Vichy regime.

And Marlowe thought Bay City was bad?

The only other employee at Fiat Lux is Nestor’s long-suffering, starry-eyed secretary, Hélène, who’s got it bad for the boss. Other supporting characters include Zavatter, an allegedly-reformed burglar, who sometimes helps out Burma; Police Commissioner Faroux, who begrudgingly admits Burma’s a pretty decent detective and Faroux’s assistant, Inspector Fabre, who doesn’t trust Burma any farther than he can throw him.

Burma appeared in almost thirty novels, including an interesting series within a series called “Les Nouveaux Mysteres de Paris,” comprising fifteen novels, each one devoted to a Paris district.

But Nestor’s popularity and influence have gone far beyond the original novels. There have been at least three films and, in the nineties, a television series. The show ran for from 1991 until somewhere around 2000, which ought to indicate how well-thought of the character is in France.

In 1982, legendary French comics artist and huge Malet fan Jacques Tardi (alone and with fellow cartoonist Emmanuel Moynot) began adapting the Burma novels into some very well done graphic novels, and even penned some original Burma stories. More recently, Moynot has continued the graphic noveld, but very much following Tardi’s style. Some of their graphic novels have even been translated into English — they’re well worth tracking down.

And if your French isn’t up to snuff, in the nineties, Britain’s Pan began releasing English translations of several of the books in the nineties. Again, they’re worth tracking down.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

One of the most influential detective writers in France, Léon Jean Malet was born in 1909 in Montpelier and lived a rather colourful life. He adopted the shortened version of his name, Léo, when as a teenager he started hanging out with local radicals. Like Burma, he was a reformed left-wing idealist and anarchist. Lacking much education, he became a chansonnier at La Vache Enragee in Montmartre,  Paris in 1925. He tried his hand at poetry, and became a reporter for a number of radical papers, and a member of the notorious Surrealist Group from 1930 to 1949. His first detective novel, Johnny Métal , appeared in 1941, under the pen name of Frank Harding. In 1943 he published 120, Rue de la Gare, which introduced Nestor Burma, his most popular character, and by 1948, he had won France’s prestigious Grand Prix de Littérature Policière. The Burma series is one of the longer running private eye series, with twenty-nine books and several short stories spanning almost fifty years. When Malet passed away in 1996, his beloved character Nestor Burma was honored by a French stamp.

UNDER OATH

BURMA AT THE MOVIES AND ON TELEVISION

A BRIEF OVERVIEW BY ETIENNE BORGERS

NOVELS

  

SHORT STORIES

FILMS

   

TELEVISION

GRAPHIC NOVELS

  

ALSO OF INTEREST

LE DICK DU JOUR

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith. Et un gros merci à Jan Christian Schmidt, Antoine Boegli et Etienne Borgers de son aide.
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