The Noir Atlantic
：Chester Himes and the Birth of the Francophone African Crime Novel
( Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures )
Publication subTitle ：Chester Himes and the Birth of the Francophone African Crime Novel
Publication series ：Contemporary French and Francophone Cultures
Author： Pim Higginson
Publisher： Liverpool University Press
Publication year： 2011
E-ISBN: 9781781387825
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9781846316906
P-ISBN(Hardback): 9781846316906
Subject：
Language： ENG
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Description
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, Himes’s 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 Ndione’s depictions of Senegal’s marijuana-smoking subculture in La Vie en spirale (1982) and ending with Mongo Beti’s 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. The Noir Atlantic examines the crucial role played by black American crime writers, particularly Chester Himes, on the birth of francophone African crime fiction. Through careful textual analysis, Higginson charts the emergence of crime fiction in francophone Africa while at the same time using a transatlantic framework to redefine both the American and the African authors in a global context. Rigorously researched and drawing on a range of existing work in several different fields, The Noir Atlantic is an important contribution to French and francophone studies, postcolonial studies, crime fiction studies and African studies. • The first book to look at the compelling links between African American and francophone African crime fiction. • Provides a historically grounded contextualization for the emergence of the genre and its development in the francophone African context. • Engages with the considerable body of research that has focused in recent years on European diasporic sites, the Atlantic, questions of race, global black consciousness. Acknowledgements Introduction: The Frivolous Literary 1. "Pas de litterature": Abasse Ndione and the Rise of Crime 2. Minor Mistranslations: Simon Njami and the Making of a Parisianist Himes 3. Crime Pays: Achille Ngoye and the Serie noire 4. Ethnographic Erotics: Bolya and the Writing of the Other 5. Terreur Rose: Kouty, memoire de sang and the Gendering of Noir 6. Going out Blazing: Mongo Beti's Last Two Novels Bibliography Index The Noir Atlantic follows the influence of African American author Chester Himes on francophone African crime fiction. • The first book to look at the compelling links between African American and francophone African crime fiction. • Provides a historically grounded contextualization for the emergence of the genre and its development in the francophone African context. • Engages with the considerable body of research that has focused in recent years on European diasporic sites, the Atlantic, questions of race, global black consciousness. Acknowledgements Introduction: The Frivolous Literary 1. "Pas de litterature": Abasse
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