Chester Himes

Chester Himes (Jefferson City, Missouri, 1909 – Moraira, Alicante, Spain, 1984) was an African American writer best known for his Harlem detective novels. He wrote in English, but his life moved between the United States, France and Spain, and his work reads as a sharp critique of American racism seen from a distance.

He grew up in a middle-class household in Missouri and Ohio. A childhood accident, in which his brother was blinded by a gunpowder explosion and denied treatment under segregation laws, left a lasting mark on how he saw race in America. He was expelled from university in his youth and, in the late 1920s, was jailed for armed robbery. In prison he began writing stories that were published in magazines, and after his release he combined odd jobs with writing. His first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go, appeared in 1945 and brought him some recognition.

From 1953 he spent long periods in France and in 1956 settled in Paris, where he kept company with other expatriate writers. There he developed the Harlem series featuring detectives Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, written in a sardonic, fatalistic tone, which brought him international fame. He moved to Spain in 1969 and died there in 1984. His legacy lies in the crime genre, where he is compared to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and in fiction that portrays Black experience in America.