ABSTRACT
Noir has long been guided by a “refugee unconscious,” which invokes and represses the refugee figure for its own aesthetic expression. But noir, once properly historicized, offers a medium for articulating refugee subjectivity and agency. An examination of three contemporary novels (Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ's Nairobi Heat, Vu Tran's Dragonfish, and China Miéville's The City & the City) demonstrates how the refugee's latent presence within the noir tradition can be registered through the motifs of conspiracy, disappearance, and eruption.
