Fanon, Frantz Omar
[key], 1925–61, French West Indian psychiatrist, author,
revolutionary, and leader of the Algerian National Front, b. Martinique.
Educated in France, he went to Algeria (1953) to practice psychiatry.
Sympathetic to the Algerian revolution from its inception (1954), Fanon
resigned his medical post (1956) to become editor of the Algerian National
Front's newspaper. His first book, Black Skin, White Masks
(1952, tr. 1967), is a psychoanalytic study of black life and the
internalization of racism in a white-dominated world. Considered one of the
first books to study the psychology of colonialism, it is an indictment of
racism, imperialism, and nationalism. In The Wretched of the
Earth (1961, tr. 1963), published just before his death and
considered by some to be his most important work, Fanon employed a fiery
rhetoric to call for a violent revolution led by the peasants of the Third
World, rather than by the proletariat, leading to socialism. The book
focuses on international violence and national consciousness, while
providing a psychoanalytic investigation into mental disorders associated
with colonialism. According to Fanon, a new type of humanity, modern yet
proud of its nonwhite heritage and undergirded with an ethic of radical
empathy, would emerge from revolutionary, anticolonial struggle. In 2018, an
edited collection of unpublished works—comprising approximately half
of Fanon's entire output—was published, titled Alienation and
Freedom.
See biographies by D. Caute (1970), I. L. Gendzier (1973), D. Macey (2001), and C. J. Lee (2015);
studies by J. McCulloch (1983), R. C. Onwuanibe (1983), A. Alessandrini
(1999), N. C. Gibson (2003), L. R. Gordon (2015), J. A. Gordon (2015), D.
Marriott (2018), and G. Arnall (2020). See also J. D. Le Sueur,
Uncivil War: Intellectuals and Identity Politics during the
Decolonization of Algeria (2001), T. Shepard, The
Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of
France (2006), and C. Robcis, Disalienation: Politics,
Philosophy, and Radical Psychiatry in Postwar France
(2021).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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