Chester B Himes

Chester Bomar Himes (1909–1984) was an acclaimed African-American author known for his protest novels like *If He Hollers Let Him Go* (1945) and his innovative Harlem Detective series featuring black policemen Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, including *Cotton Comes to Harlem* (1965). Born into a middle-class family in Jefferson City, Missouri, he began writing during an eight-year prison sentence and later gained international recognition, winning France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 1958. Himes spent his later years in Spain, where he died of Parkinson’s disease.