Description

FIRST EDITION (copyright page), with its dust jacket designed by Philip Grushkin, the price of $3 is retained.

In his second novel, Chester Himes portrays the struggle of a black trade union activist in Los Angeles during the Second World War. The book was only moderately successful in the United States:
"[The Lonely Crusade] contained within its sprawling canvas enough portraits of racist and/or fascist whites, psychopathic and/or Tomish blacks and unscrupulous and/or double agent Communists to offend everyone- black and Communist reviewers as well as white estalishment ones. "(Pfeil, Fred. Another Tale to Tell: Politics and Narrative in Postmodern Culture. 1990. p. 64)
However, the French translation of the work, compiled by Yves Malartic and published in 1952 (Lee Gordon's Crusade, Corrêa), was much more favourably received. Motivated in part by this difference in reception, the author moved to Paris.