{"product_id":"9781846318696","title":"The Noir Atlantic: Chester Himes and the Birth of the Francophone African Crime Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Liverpool University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47050931110128,"sku":"9781846318696","price":34.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781846318696_p0.jpg?v=1763746483","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781846318696","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}