ENG - Ataúd Ed Johnson y Sepulturero Jones

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Ataúd Ed Johnson (Ataúd = coffin) and Sepulturero Jones (Sepulturero = grave digger) are the names of the two inspectors in the Spanish translations of Himes’ crime novels or his Harlem domestic novels as he used to call them.

If we look at the Spanish titles of these novels, we can see they have been translated very faithfully from the titles in the American editions. They therefore do not take up the puns of the original French editions in the Série noire collection.

Original Himes' title	Title in the Série noire	Title of the subsequent American edition	Title of the Spanish edition
The Five Cornered Square	La reine des pommes	1. For Love of Imabelle (1957).  2. A Rage in Harlem (1965)	Por amor a Imabelle
If Trouble Was Money	Il pleut des coups durs	The Real Cool Killers	La banda de los musulmanes
A Jealous Man Can’t Win	Couché dans le pain	The Crazy Kill	El loco asesinato
The Big Gold Dream	Tout pour plaire	The Big Gold Dream	El gran sueño de oro
Don’t Play With Death	Imbroglio négro	All Shot up	Todos muertos
Be Calm	Ne nous énervons pas	The Heat’s On	Empieza el calor
Back to Africa	Retour en Afrique	Cotton Comes to Harlem	Algodón en Harlem

Translating Himes is never easy. For the blog Mis detectives favoritos, "it is a

challenge to translate the language of Harlem into Spanish. Some translators keep the original nicknames of the inspectors, others translate them. The translation of Bruguera (Por Amor a Imabelle, 1980) has not aged very well because it used the slang of the time (and slang, which evolves more quickly than the common language, always ages worse) ".

The blog Cuaderno de trabajo presents Himes as follows: "Chester Himes is a North American writer who was very well known in his time and who is now a bit out of fashion and little present in journalistic references." We can but subscribe to this comment.

We saw in the article Cidade escaldante; What can be learned from a Portuguese edition of Himes’ The Heat’s On? that Himes, in his position of author working on commission for the Série noire collection (with a 220 page imposed format, for example) had also accepted – or anticipated – the formulation of titles conforming to the line or the style of the collection: the example of Ne nous fâchons pas (Be Calm), later renamed The Heat's On, is the most striking. Between the French title and the title of the subsequent American edition, we are dealing with two types of puns and humor (traditional French vs hardboiled American). The difference also tells us about the distance between the language of Himes and that of his translations.

 Unlike the titles of the Série noire, the titles of the Spanish editions do not take the risk of the pun: a pity because The Five-Cornered Square – the  title given by Himes to the manuscript of the novel later titled For Love of Imabelle or A Rage in Harlem – with its pun on “square” (naïve), had given in French a very good La reine des pommes.

See the blogs

El blogo de Juan Carlos

Cuaderno de trabajo

Mis detectives favoritos 

ENG - Cotton Comes To Harlem: the peak of MacGuffin

The MacGuffin was not invented nor coined by Hitchcock [1] but he undoubtedly theorized it in a humorous way: "A MacGuffin – you see it in most films about spies – is the thing the spies are after. […]. It is always called the thing the characters on the screen worry about, but the audience don't care." It is found in a number of other novels and films, for example, in the excellent Kiss Me Deadly, by Robert Aldrich, adapted very freely (fortunately!) from the novel by Mickey Spillane, A MacGuffin is an element, often material, which is supposed to be an issue in the story and, more often than not, a pretext for its development. One inevitably thinks of the Maltese falcon in the novel of the same name. Himes could not do without having recourse to it: it is, for example, the false mining title in A Rage In Harlem, Val’s secret in The Crazy Kill, Alberta’s money in The Big Gold Dream… 

It is however in Cotton Comes To Harlem that it is used in the most accomplished way. In this novel, one MacGuffin contains another: in the cotton ball is hidden the money that the Harlemites gave, in all gullibility, to the false Reverend O'Malley to organize their release and their return to Africa, the land of their ancestors.

The henchmen of Colonel Calhoun, leader of the Back To the Southland Movement steal the cotton ball. It then passes into the hands of an old black ragpicker, Uncle Bud, the only one who realizes the dream of returning to Africa where he will buy "a hundred women of average quality" with the money hidden there. Dancer Billy buys the cotton for her cotton dance at the Cotton Club (!). The two inspectors finally seize it, after a chase punctuated by an impressive number of corpses. They will discretely compensate the inhabitants of Harlem, robbed by black scammers and white racists.

It is partly for the magnificent use of the MacGuffin that Cotton Comes to Harlem is the culmination of the detective form in Himes, while constituting a significant step in the creation of a new genre, more political and fantastic.

Himes had a clear insight: "It is a good novel, probably the best of my detective novels". "My last book on the Cops and the Cotton is entirely devoted to the racial problem and the living conditions in Harlem and I make my inspectors express what they – and the other blacks – feel in Harlem" [2]. On the one hand, there is "a mastery of the storytelling which joins the classic tradition of the black novel, on the other, an intrigue whose historical and political issues are clearly mentioned. Finally, a writing more brilliant than ever, but now more subject to the necessities of storytelling. The complexity of the organization is particularly evident in the careful watchmaking of cotton. A cotton ball is lost by a truck; this cotton ball is found by an old black man by the name of Cotton Bud; simultaneously, an advertisement is posted in Colonel Calhoun's room "looking for cotton ball"; Cotton Bud sells the cotton bale to a ragpicker; an employee of the latter, Josh, offers Colonel Calhoun to sell him the cotton ball; the ragman's warehouse watchdog is poisoned and then Josh is murdered: the cotton is gone ... "[3]

[1] The term "MacGuffin" was coined by a screenwriter Hitchcock worked with named Angus MacPhail, according to Donald Spoto in The Art of Alfred Hitchcock : Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures.
See Hitchcock and MacGuffin

[2] These two references are found in the second volume of Himes' autobiography, My Life of Absurdity, New York, Doubleday, 1976, p. 277 and p. 279.

[3] Sylvie Escande, Chester Himes, l'unique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2013, p. 142.

ENG - Chester Himes, my neighbor

On the cover of My Life of Absurdity*, Chester in the last years of his life. We can see by his emaciated face that he is sick, but Anne-Christine who knew him at that time describes a man with demonstrative joy, happy to be in the company of children and in love with his cats.

We used to go on holidays to Moraira (a Spanish village located between Valencia and Alicante on the Costa Blanca), in a house that my parents had bought in 1962. It was called Casa Ana Cristina and was lost in the pine forest, but we still had a few neighbors.

In Pla del Mar (name of the small hill on which our house was located), the summers were the same from one year to the next...

On the other side of the pine forest that you had to cross to access it, Casa Griot, a rather imposing house belonged to Lesley and Chester Himes. The advantage of this pretty house over the others was its beautiful swimming pool, a promise of freshness during these hot summers.

We were very often invited there for endless baths (my parents and the Himes were friends since their installation in Moraira). Chester, despite his handicap, took baths with us, strapped in a sort of big black buoy (a big tyre inner tube!) and we played. He laughed heartily, I imagine he was happy to find a little carelessness and lightness.

Then Lesley would help him out and put him in his wheelchair by the pool under a small arbor and he would watch us play in the water.

I knew from my parents that he wrote books, but for a 10-year-old girl, it was pretty vague. I was also aware of his accident. No matter, for my brother and I he was a man who liked to laugh, to bathe in all simplicity with us.

I still remember his thunderous laugh during the many dinners and other celebrations at home. Chester liked to sit at the large rattan table on the terrace in front of the house, always in the same chair. He seemed to be enjoying mom's food and the good Spanish wine.

He told stories in his big voice (in English, my parents luckily spoke it well) and, for us, his presence was the assurance of going to bed late and staying with "the grown-ups".

Sometimes we went to their place, always for a final swim in the pool and then we had dinner under a sort of large veranda which was accessed via a large staircase. Lesley concocted nice meals. She was always imperturbable and dressed in white!

Chester’s cats  accompanied these evenings. He had a passion for these animals (Abyssinian cats I believe). They were impressive and enigmatic and sometimes even a little scary.

Lesley and Chester then left this house, which was no longer convenient for him, and they settled (still in Pla del Mar) in a one-story house.

It wasn't until much later that I realized that we had a "somewhat special" neighbor. From these memories, there are a few photos left in the family albums and in my mother's library the works of Chester with this dedication "For Pierre and Nicole from Chester".

Anne-Christine T-M (January 2017)

Dedication to Anne Christine's parents.

* My Life of Absurdity (1976) is the second volume of Himes' autobiography.

ENG - The Invention of Harlem - 2: When the fiction breaks up

Himes' last two novels, Blind Man With a Pistol and Plan B, are marked by a clear break as regards the role of the two detectives and the representation of Harlem. The existence of the two detectives was first determined by a narrative requirement. They only appear in the 8^th chapter of A Rage in Harlem/For Love of Imabelle, when Himes realized what the presence of police could add to his intrigue. They are part of a larger whole: Harlem. Himes has built around Harlem a fiction necessary for the development of his detective stories. Harlem appears, in the early novels, in an imprecise way, as a free black state, with its own physical and human geography and borders. This is never explicitly said but rather suggested by remarkable omissions. Indeed, in Himes' description of Harlem, the marks of the Whites’ economic and political domination, and even, to a large extent, of their presence, are obscured.

The role of the two detectives arises from the same fictional necessity. Until Cotton Comes to Harlem, they act almost independently, according to their own initiatives. They are appreciated and covered by their hierarchy, reduced to Lieutenant Anderson. The explicit mission of Grave Digger and Ed Coffin is to maintain order in Harlem, which leads them to repress mainly other Blacks, but also to protect the Whites when they enter the black city. Their conception of their role goes, however, beyond what is assigned to them. They intend to keep some sense to the world in which black people live, by preventing the city and its inhabitants from falling into the chaos of absurdity and boundless violence. In short, they are and they make the law in Harlem. For this, they implement a particular morality and apply their own rules, taking care, for example, not to harm the organized crime when it meets the needs of the population, but chasing the numerous crooks, including religious or political crooks.

The 1960s were marked in the United States by intense political struggles, with the civil rights movement, the emergence of more radical parties (Black Power), and the strong development of Black Muslims. Himes does not openly take sides but insists on the need for Blacks to use organized violence, not in a separatist or supremacist vision, but to create an irremediable shock. From All Shot Up (1960), and much more clearly from The Heat’s On (1961), several developments inexorably contribute to the explosion of the joint fiction of Harlem as a free city and of the two detectives as free policemen. The first one is a change in the nature of violence. In the first novels Harlem is violent but this violence occurs between Blacks (settling of scores, burglaries, scams, domestic violence). As soon as it appears, the violence of Whites turns out to be different: it emanates from organized crime (the heroin trade in The Heat’s On) and it comes from the South. It is therefore marked by sadism and inhumanity (All Shot Up, Cotton Comes to Harlem). As positive or endearing characters disappear, the Harlem cycle evolves towards drama. 

Blind Man With a Pistol eventually reveals the domination of the Whites over Harlem. The interlude between the 2^nd and 3^d chapters puts an end to the deliberate omission of the previous seven novels. It focuses on the Mecca of Harlem, the intersection of 7th avenue and 125th street. “Many white people, riding the buses or in motorcars, pass this corner daily. Furthermore, most of the commercial enterprises – stores, bars, restaurants, theaters, etc. – and real estate are owned by white people. But it is the Mecca for black people. The air and the heat and the voices and the laughter, the atmosphere and the drama and the melodrama are theirs. Theirs are the hopes, the schemes, the prayers and the protest. They are the managers, the clerks, the cleaners, they drive the taxis and the buses, they are the clients, the customers, the audience; they work it, but the white man owns it.”  The constant presence of Whites in Harlem was set up in Blind Man With a Pistol: the entire 1^st chapter with the Mormon reverend, his 20 wives and 50 children, is seen through the eyes of two white policemen.

Blind Man With a Pistol highlights Harlem's absurdity: a hundred-year-old Mormon reverend, father of more than 50 children, a fertility treatment based on baboon testicles and fighting cock feathers, a television delivery in the middle of the night, a black plaster Jesus with fists clenched in rage… The city  also falls prey to the agitation of movements which all betray black people, intentionally or because they are manipulated. 

There is no longer any hope of deliverance and chaos has taken over Harlem. The two detectives run out of steam on a meaningless mission – to find the cause and the instigator of the riot –, and lose their authority, with the arrival of a white police hierarchy which distrusts them and pushes them aside. The first ending of Blind Man with a Pistol in the penultimate chapter shows the two inspectors slaughtering rats.

The three covers come from the Payback Press British edition (1996). It includes The Dilemma of the Black Writer in America, a conference given by Himes in 1948 (never before published) and introductions by Melvin Van Peebles and Lesley Himes.

ENG - Himes in the Penguin Modern Classics collection

The first three Chester Himes' Harlem domestic novels, with the exception of Run Man Run (which, despite its great quality, is less known, presumably because it did not have the two detectives for heroes) have been published by the great British publisher Penguin, in the Modern Classics collection, alongside, for example, James Joyce's Ulysses.

In the Penguin edition, the first one, La reine des pommes, is titled A Rage in Harlem. Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner and Lester Sullivan* have identified the successive titles of the novel. The original title, that of Himes' English manuscript (1957), is The Five Cornered Square, which in a literal reading. means a square with five sides, but also contains a play on words, “square” also having the meaning of naive, gullible, or simple. It obviously refers to Jackson, compared to Goldy, his twin brother, so much more intelligent and creative. 

Let us give back to the Série noire where the novel was originally published the credit it deserves: La reine des pommes is a clever equivalent of the original title, pomme being close to square in its naive sense. Still the text was never published in English under the original title. The Anglo-Saxon editions have had for titles either A Rage in Harlem or For Love of Imabelle.

In his introduction to the Penguin edition, Luc Sante explains why A Rage in Harlem imposed itself, at the expense of the title wanted by Himes "not because it is descriptive or even especially appropriate, but because it combined two nouns guaranteed to act as flint and steel in the mind of the average 1950s American drugstore paperback browser. Harlem (...) was more myth than place to most white Americans of the period."**

* Chester Himes, An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Compiled by Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner and Lester Sullivan. Greenwood Press, 1992.

** A Rage in Harlem. Introduction by Luc Sante. Penguin Modern Classics, 2011.

About the titles of the Harlem Cycle novels, see on this blog Cidade escaldante: What can be learned from a Portuguese edition of Himes' The Heat's On?.

Himes chez Penguin

A Rage in Harlem

Les trois premiers romans du cycle de Harlem, à l'exception de Dare-dare / Run Man Run (qui, malgré sa grande qualité, est moins connu, sans doute parce qu'il n'a pas les deux inspecteurs pour héros) ont été publiés chez le grand éditeur britannique Penguin, qui plus est dans la collection Modern Classics, aux côtés, par exemple, de Ulysses de James Joyce.

Chez Penguin, La reine des pommes a pour titre A Rage in Harlem. Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner et Lester Sullivan* ont identifié les titres successifs du roman. Le titre original, celui du manuscrit de Himes (1957), est The Five Cornered Square, qui dans une lecture littérale. signifie le carré à cinq côtés, mais qui contient un jeu de mot. Car square a aussi le sens de naïf, crédule, simplet. Il s'agit bien évidemment de Jackson, comparé à Goldy, son frère jumeau, tellement plus intelligent et créatif. Rendons à la Série noire ce qui lui est dû : La reine des pommes est un équivalent astucieux du titre original. Cependant, le texte n'a jamais été publié en anglais sous ce titre. Les éditions anglo-saxonnes ont eu pour titres soit A Rage in Harlem soit For Love of Imabelle.

Dans sa préface à l'édition Penguin, Luc Sante explique pourquoi A Rage in Harlem s'est imposé, aux dépens du titre voulu par Himes "non pas parce qu'il est descriptif ou même particulièrement approprié mais parce qu'il combinait deux noms réputés agir comme le silex et l'acier dans l'esprit du lecteur américain moyen de livres de poche de supermarché dans les années 1950. Harlem (...) était plus un mythe qu'un lieu pour la majorité des Américains blancs de l'époque."**

* Chester Himes, An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography. Compiled by Michel Fabre, Robert E. Skinner and Lester Sullivan. Greenwood Press, 1992.

**A Rage in Harlem. Préface de Luc Sante. Penguin Modern Classics, 2011.

Sur les titres des romans policiers de Himes, voir la page de ce blog Cidade escaldante : ce que nous apprend une édition portugaise de Himes

Imbroglio négro

Il pleut des coups durs

"Une découverte stupéfiante" : Himes et James Dean

Le commentaire qui suit a été laissé anonymement (et c'est bien dommage) après l'article De Qu'on lui jette la première pierre à Hier te fera pleurer.

« La version de 1952, sous le titre Qu'on lui jette la première pierre*, était un livre de poche enfoui dans la bibliothèque de James Dean. Le fait que Jack Warner, patron de la maison de production Warner Bros au début des années 1950 a eu en même temps sous contrat Dean pour ses films les plus importants et les plus iconiques (La fureur de vivre, A l'est d'Eden, Géant) et brièvement comme scénariste Himes qu'il a ensuite licencié car il était noir, est un autre fait choquant et oublié. La relation entre Jim et Dido dans le roman de Himes fait beaucoup penser à celle entre Jim Starck (James Dean) et le personnage de Plato, interprété par Sal Mineo, dans La fureur de vivre.

Est-il possible qu'il y ait eu un lien ou une influence dont peu de gens se seraient rendu compte ? »

* Cast the First Stone.
Ce roman est une version édulcorée du manuscrit de Himes. Le texte original sera rétabli beaucoup plus tard (en 1978) sous le titre Hier te fera pleurer.

Voir De Qu'on lui jette la première pierre à Demain te fera pleurer