They inflated the significance of one element in the book over all others: violence. By identifying the racism and structural subordination of the colonial predicament, as well as charting a humanist route out of it, Fanon defined a politics of liberation whose terms and aims remain relevant today.īut many of Fanon’s recent academic critics, and even some of his sympathizers, continued to distort and misconstrue Wretched. This is how it inspired a whole generation of radicals around the world to transform societies that were slowly emerging from colonial domination. As a text, it combines dynamic critique with political passion, historical probing with denunciation of injustice, reasoned argument with moral indignation against suffering. To read Wretched is to enter a world of colonial division, national conflict, and emancipatory yearning. By targeting colonialism and positing a new egalitarian society in the future, Fanon captures the voice and critical orientation of a whole generation of radical intellectuals. No other political text expresses as astutely and productively the whole conjuncture of decolonization, with its distinctive contradictions and possibilities. Nothing like it exists in the annals of anti-colonial letters.

Wretched is, without a doubt, Fanon’s most important book. In addition to Wretched, he wrote Black Skin, White Masks (1952), A Dying Colonialism (1959), and Toward the African Revolution (1964). Fanon died as he was waiting for treatment for leukemia in the United States, having just completed his political testament The Wretched of the Earth (1961), which was famously prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre.įanon’s writings on colonialism, racism, and anti-imperialism have had a massive impact around the world, especially in the Global South. He also participated in editing its French-language publication El Moudjahid, where his own work appeared. Fanon formally joined the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in exile in Tunis and represented the movement on the international stage. After qualifying as a psychiatrist in Lyon in 1951, he ended up in French Algeria and practiced at the Blida-Joinville psychiatric hospital until he was deported in 1957 for his political sympathies toward the Algerian national struggle. Born in Martinique under French colonial rule, Fanon joined the anti-Vichy Free French Forces in World War II and served in North Africa and France. Right now, you can subscribe to the print edition of Catalyst for just $20.įrantz Fanon (1925–61) is one of the twentieth century’s most significant anti-colonial intellectuals. This article is reprinted from Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, a publication from the Jacobin Foundation.

The wretched of the earth on violence