Frantz Fanon

 Frantz Fanon - psychiatrist, political theorist,poet, polemicist,diplomat, journalist, soldier, doctor, revolutionary - is one of the foremost writers of the 20th century on the topics of racism, colonialism, and decolonization. In this short lifetime, he produced two enduring books : 'Black Skin, White Masks', still regarded as the preeminent study of the lived experiences of racism, and 'The Wretched of the Earth', regarded at the time of its publication as "the handbook of decolonization", and presenting itself to us today as both a clear-eyed prediction of the lasting legacy of Neo- classicism and as a visionary account of a truly post-colonial yet to come.

These two books encapsulate, the major themes not only of Fanon's writing but also of his extraordinary life. Black Skin,White Masks  captures Fanon's experience as a native of Martinique and the product of a colonial education who came to experience metropolitan racism upon his arrival in France. The book draws upon Fanon's training in Psychiatry and psychoanalysis but also upon Marxism existentialism, the work of the negritude movement, and a number of literary texts in order to analyze the lived wxperience of racism.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon develops the Manichean perspective implicit in BSWM. To overcome the binary system in which black is bad and white is good, Fanon argues that an entirely new world must come into being. This utopian desire, to be absolutely free of the past, requires total revolution, "absolute violence". Violence purifies, destroying not only the category of white, but that of black too.

One of the most influential articles, "Unveiled Algeria", comes from the essay 'A Dying Colonialism'. It signifies the fall of imperialism and demonstrates how people struggle to decolonize their "mind" to avoid assimilation.

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