SOURCE: Kelly, Jack. “‘I Thought I Was Writing Realism.’” American Legacy: Celebrating African-America History and Culture 6, no. 3 (fall 2000): 35-40.

In the following essay, Kelly gives an overview of Himes's life and work.

When the expatriate, ex-convict, and lifelong writer Chester Himes couldn't pay the rent with his “serious” novels, he turned up the volume and produced a series of scalding, darkly funny detective stories.

In 1956 Chester Himes was, he told a friend, “living on a prayer.” He had been writing for more than two decades with scant financial success. He owed back rent on his Paris apartment. He was forced to borrow money from friends even for stamps and cigarettes. Marcel Duhamel, an editor who had translated one of Himes's early works into French, suggested that he write a detective novel for La Serie Noire, a line of “policieres” issued by the prestigious Gallimard house. Himes protested that...