This diploma thesis focuses on the most popular representative of the so-called "polar marseillais", which is Jean-Claude Izzo. The theoretical part briefly describes the development of the detective genre and the place of the detective novel in the framework of French literary production. It also deals with the position of the detective novel in the context of Czech literature and publishing. Secondly, Jean-Claude Izzo and his works will be presented in detail. Based on the information already presented, it will be possible to characterize the place of this author in connection to the French literary scene and to describe his function in the Czech environment. The main part of the work will be devoted to the translatological analysis and the critique of two Czech translations of Izzo's novels Totální chaos and Chourmo that together with Solea belong to his so-called 'Marseilles trilogy'.

This study examines how the French bestselling detective novel Total Khéops (1995) by Jean-Claude Izzo relates to three literary sub-genres of detective fiction to which it mainly has been associated since it first was published: roman noir français (French roman noir), polar marseillais and Mediterranean noir. By assembling the most significant criterions of these sub-genres and analyzing their presence in Total Khéops, or its architextuality within the crime novel, this approach aims to reveal in what sub-genre this novel mainly should be categorized. The results of the study show that Total Khéops exhibits central features of all the three sub-genres, but as the findings overlap, and that several characteristic traits are possible to associate with more than one of these categories, it’s difficult to judge to which sub-genre this novel mainly belongs. However, the study indicates that the focus on the elements of place and local culture of the city of Marseille in Total Khéops sets a new standard in the way the polar marseillais was to develop to a proper sub-genre in the late 1990s: these features are to be considered as new in the domain of French crime fiction.