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A review by casparb
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
5.0
Fanon's incredible and unapologetic assessment of colonialism, African nationalism, and the cultures therein.
This text is worth reading for the last section ('Colonial War and Mental Disorders') alone - it's a truly astonishing, jarring sequence of notes from his time as a psychotherapist during the Algerian revolution. It's been a long time since I felt something so visceral & human delivered in an entirely passive tone. In fact, I found myself sinking into the misbelief that these haunting narratives are fiction, until reminded that Fanon himself experienced and met these individuals.
If it wasn't clear thus far, it's not a cheerful read. An essential one, nonetheless.
Something that struck me as new about the style of this book as a whole was Fanon's refusal to assume a European audience. It's an interesting thing to realise - he never draws attention to this perspective, but I found it instructive as an emphasis for his notes on producing 'de-colonialised culture' and the necessity of artistic reinvention within African independent and colonial states.
I found myself highlighting every other sentence in chapter one.
This text is worth reading for the last section ('Colonial War and Mental Disorders') alone - it's a truly astonishing, jarring sequence of notes from his time as a psychotherapist during the Algerian revolution. It's been a long time since I felt something so visceral & human delivered in an entirely passive tone. In fact, I found myself sinking into the misbelief that these haunting narratives are fiction, until reminded that Fanon himself experienced and met these individuals.
If it wasn't clear thus far, it's not a cheerful read. An essential one, nonetheless.
Something that struck me as new about the style of this book as a whole was Fanon's refusal to assume a European audience. It's an interesting thing to realise - he never draws attention to this perspective, but I found it instructive as an emphasis for his notes on producing 'de-colonialised culture' and the necessity of artistic reinvention within African independent and colonial states.
I found myself highlighting every other sentence in chapter one.