Chapter 3 shows that in the Mediterranean novel, food becomes a powerful tool through which Mediterranean writers deconstruct homogeneous national identities and celebrate transculturality in the Mediterranean area. In spite of significant differences, some common traits emerge. These include the representation of eating and drinking habits as a collective practice that involves an extended family, including non-national individuals often belonging to the Mediterranean basin; the portrayal of meal sharing as an event that facilitates communication among different cultures, and a way to celebrate a more extensive Mediterranean culture and identity; the use of food as a tool to present a critique of assumed formulations of regional and national identities; and finally, through the contrast between tradition and modernity, food is used to express anxiety for cultures perceived to be under threat from external, and often global, forces. The chapter concludes that food in Mediterranean crime fiction celebrates unity and a common culture in the Mediterranean area, bringing down national borders and expressing once more the transcultural nature of Mediterranean crime fiction.

Chapter 5 argues that, because of the specific transcultural history and culture of the Mediterranean area, the Mediterranean crime novel articulates a criticism of prevalent ideas of homogeneous national identities that disregard complexity, and instead of unifying, fracture and alienate cultures and individuals. It contends that Mediterranean crime fiction contributes to the discourse on identity with a sophisticated, multilayered analysis that develops at three levels: national, postcolonial and supranational. What brings together these different discourses on identity and belonging is the theme of internal Orientalism, that is, the tendency of nations or regions to view the cultures and religions to some of their parts ‒ typically the South and East ‒ as more conservative and primitive. As this chapter argues, building on a discourse started in Chapters 1 and 3, the Mediterranean novel reflects the discriminatory cultures and practices of the nation-state and advocates for inclusion. In so doing, they provide a counter-narrative to the current political moment in Europe and in the world, which is marked by stasis, borders and exclusion.