Frantz Fanon A Life

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), author of The Wretched of the Earth, was one of the great figures of the Third World revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s. His angry and eloquent writings on race, racism, psychiatry and anti-colonialism have become respectable in the academies of the developed world in the form of 'post-colonial studies'. ..Born in Martinique, Fanon trained as a psychiatrist in France before taking up a post in colonial Algeria. He had already experienced racism as a soldier in the Free French Army. In Algeria, he came into contact with the Front de Liberation National which was fighting a bitter war of independence. Forced to flee Algeria when he resigned his post, Fanon subsequently worked with the FLN as a propogandist and ambassador but also continued to work as a psychiatrist. ..Based on extensive and original research, this is the first complete and objective biography of Fanon. It goes beyond the myths that have grown up around the revolutionary hero and reveals Fanon to be a complex figure, infinitely more interesting than the theorist of anti-colonial violence celebrated by the left in the 1960s.