Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T13:58:07.615Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Transatlantic Mysteries of Paris: Chester Himes, Surrealism, and the Série noire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Jonathan P. Eburne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay examines Chester Himes's transformation, in 1957, from a writer of African American social protest fiction into a “French” writer of Harlem crime thrillers. Instead of representing the exhaustion of his political commitment, Himes's transformation from a “serious” writer of didactic fiction into an exiled crime novelist represents a radical change in political and literary tactics. In dialogue with the editor and former surrealist Marcel Duhamel, Himes's crime fiction, beginning with La reine des pommes (now A Rage in Harlem), invents a darkly comic fictional universe that shares an affinity with the surrealist notion of black humor in its vehement denial of epistemological and ethical certainty. Rejecting the efforts of Richard Wright and the existentialists to adopt an engaged form of political writing, Himes's crime fiction instead forges a kind of vernacular surrealism, one independent of the surrealist movement but nevertheless sharing surrealism's insistence on the volatility of written and political expression.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 120 , Issue 3 , May 2005 , pp. 806 - 821
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. Writing Degree Zero. 1953. Trans. Annette Lavers and Colin Smith. New York: Hill, 1968.Google Scholar
Bell, Kevin. “Assuming the Position: Fugitivity and Futurity in the Work of Chester Himes.” Paris, Modern Fiction, and the Black Atlantic. Ed. Jeremy Braddock and Jonathan P. Eburne. Spec. issue of Modern Fiction Studies 51.4 (2005): forthcoming.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. “Little History of Photography.” 1931. Selected Writings. Vol. 2 (1927–34). Ed. Howard Eiland, Gary Smith, and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999. 507–30.Google Scholar
Blanchot, Maurice. “Reflections on Surrealism.” The Work of Fire. 1949. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995. 85–97.Google Scholar
Breton, André. Anthology of Black Humor. Trans. Polizzotti, Mark. San Francisco: City Lights, 1997. Trans. of Anthologie de l'humour noir. 1945.Google Scholar
Breton, André. “As in a Wood.” L'âge du cinéma 4–5 (1951). Rpt. in Hammond 72–77.Google Scholar
Breton, André. Conversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism. Trans. Polizzotti, Mark. New York: Marlowe, 1993.Google Scholar
Breton, André. “Manifesto of Surrealism.” 1924. Manifestoes of Surrealism. Trans. Seaver, Richard and Lane, Helen. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1969. 3–47.Google Scholar
Cahun, Claude. Les paris sont ouverts. Paris: Corti, 1934. Rpt. in Ecrits. Ed. Leperlier, François. Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 2002. 500–34.Google Scholar
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. 1955. Trans. Justin O'Brien. New York: Vintage, 1991.Google Scholar
Camus, Albert. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt. 1951. Trans. Anthony Bower. New York: Vintage, 1956.Google Scholar
Conley, Katharine. Robert Desnos, Surrealism, and the Marvelous in Everyday Life. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2003.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. “Coldness and Cruelty.” Masochism. Trans. McNeil, Jean. New York: Zone, 1991. 9–138.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. Desert Islands and Other Texts: 1953.-1974. Ed. Lapoujade, David. Trans. Mike Taormina. Cambridge: Semiotext(e), 2003.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. “Philosophie de la Série noire.” Arts et loisirs 26 Jan. 1966. 12–13.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. “Plato and the Simulacrum.” The Logic of Sense. Trans. Boundas, Constantin V., Lester, Mark, and Stivale, Charles. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. 253–65.Google Scholar
Diawara, Manthia. “Noir by Noirs: Toward a New Realism in Black Cinema.” Shades of Noir. Ed. Copjec, Joan. London: Verso, 1993. 261–78.Google Scholar
Duhamel, Marcel. “Interview du mois.” By Luc Geslin and Georges Rieben. Mystère-magazine July 1972. 125–27.Google Scholar
Duhamel, Marcel. Préface. Panorama du film noir américain. Ed. Borde, Raymond and Chaumenton, Emile. Paris: Minuit, 1955. vii-x.Google Scholar
Duhamel, Marcel. Promotional introduction to the Série noire. L'argot de la Série noire. By Robert Girard and Pierre Ditalia. Paris: Joseph K., 1996. N. pag.Google Scholar
Duhamel, Marcel. Raconte pas ta vie! Paris: Mercure de France, 1972.Google Scholar
Edwards, Brent Hayes. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fabre, Michel, and E, Robert. Skinner, eds. Conversations with Chester Himes. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 1995.Google Scholar
Hammond, Paul, ed. and trans. The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema. San Francisco: City Lights, 2000.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. Cotton Comes to Harlem. 1965. New York: Vintage, 1988.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. If He Hollers, Let Him Go. 1945. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1986.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. My Life of Absurdity. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1972. Vol. 2 of The Autobiography of Chester Himes.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. The Quality of Hurt. New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1971. Vol. 1 of The Autobiography of Chester Himes.Google Scholar
Himes, Chester. A Rage in Harlem. 1957. New York: Vintage, 1991.Google Scholar
Kelley, Robin D. G. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston: Beacon, 2002.Google Scholar
McCann, Sean. Gumshoe America: Hard-Boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism. Durham: Duke UP, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mesplède, Claude. Les années “Série noire.” 2nd ed. Amiens: Enorage, 1992. 5 vols.Google Scholar
Micha, René. “Les paroissiens de Chester Himes.” Les temps modernes 225 (1965): 1506.-23.Google Scholar
Milliken, Stephen. Chester Himes: A Critical Appraisal. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1976.Google Scholar
Naremore, James. More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts. Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.Google Scholar
Paligot, Carole Reynaud. Parcours politique des Surréalistes, 1919.-1969. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1995.Google Scholar
Robinson, Cedric J. Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2000.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. What Is Literature? Trans. Frechtman, Bernard. New York: Harper, 1965.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert P. “Chester Himes in France and the Legacy of the Roman Policier.” CLA Journal 25 (1981): 18–27.Google Scholar
Vernet, Marc. “Film Noir on the Edge of Doom.” Shades of Noir. Ed. Copjec, Joan. London: Verso, 1993. 1–31.Google Scholar
Wright, Richard. “Blueprint for Negro Writing.” New Challenge (1937). Rpt. in The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader. Ed. David Levering Lewis. New York: Penguin, 1994. 194–205.Google Scholar
Wright, Richard. “Introductory Note to The Respectful Prostitute.” Art and Action. Spec. issue of Twice a Year 16–17 (1948). New York: Krauss Reprint, 1967. 14–16.Google Scholar
Wright, Richard. The Outsider. New York: Harper, 1953.Google Scholar