Frantz Fanon

Who is Frantz Fanon?

Frantz Omar Fanon was born in Fort-de-France, Martinique, and became one of the most influential thinkers on colonialism, race, and decolonization of the twentieth century. He left Martinique to fight with the Free French Forces during the Second World War and later trained as a psychiatrist in France, where he studied under Alsatian philosopher and psychiatrist François Tosquelles. His clinical work treating both French colonizers and Algerian patients during the Algerian War of Independence, while head of the psychiatric department at Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria, shaped his analysis of the psychological toll of colonial violence. His first major book, "Peau noire, masques blancs" (Black Skin, White Masks), published in 1952, examined the psychological effects of racism and colonization on Black identity. He later resigned his hospital post to join the Algerian National Liberation Front and became a prominent voice for African liberation movements. His final and most influential work, "Les Damnés de la Terre" (The Wretched of the Earth), published in 1961 shortly before his death, analyzed the dynamics of colonial violence and decolonization and profoundly shaped post-colonial theory, Pan-Africanism, and civil rights movements worldwide. Fanon died of leukemia in the United States in December 1961 at the age of thirty-six.

Sources: Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs (1952) · Frantz Fanon, Les Damnés de la Terre (1961) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Frantz Fanon"