The Noir Atlantic: Chester Himes and the Birth of the Francophone African Crime Novel

The Noir Atlantic follows the influence of African American author Chester Himes on Francophone African crime fiction. In 1953, Himes emigrated to Paris; he struggled there, just as he had in the United States. In 1957, his luck changed: the famous French Série noire brought out the first installment of his Harlem crime series, La reine des pommes. Suddenly, he was a household name in France. Later, he would also have a significant influence on Francophone African writers; for them, Himess blend of absurdist humor and violence offered an alternative to a high literary paradigm implanted during the colonial era. Likewise, his heterogeneous identity as American, black, and a writer of French bestsellers modeled an escape from the centripetal pull of the Métropole. Starting with Abasse Ndiones depictions of Senegals marijuana-smoking subculture in La Vie en spirale (1982) and ending with Mongo Betis 2001 Branle-bas en noir et blanc, set in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Francophone African crime fiction rejected French criteria of literary success; it embraced a new postcolonial aesthetic that emphasized entertaining the reader while making a living. The Noir Atlantic demonstrates why turning to what this study calls a frivolous literary mode represented a profound shift in perspective that anticipated more recent developments such as littérature monde. See more