ABOUT THIS BOOK

A biography of the revolutionary philosopher and psychiatrist.

Doctor, militant, essayist, ambassador, teacher, journalist, pan-Africanist, Frantz Fanon sought to decolonize mid-twentieth-century culture as he embodied a new kind of intellectual. Born in colonial Martinique, he fought for France during World War II but later renounced his citizenship and fought in the Algerian War of Independence. This book emphasizes Fanon’s gift for self-invention and performance as it follows his short but extraordinary life and explores how his pioneering work in psychiatry influenced his revolutionary philosophy.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

James S. Williams is professor of modern French literature and film at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the author of several books, including Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary African Cinema: The Politics of Beauty.

REVIEWS

"Elegantly succinct yet deeply informed, William's authoritative account of Fanon’s life and thought is a superb book. With great clarity, Williams finely captures the ambiguities, paradoxes and opacities of Fanon’s work and personality, in a style that is not afraid to offer critical distance through parenthetic comments or to include speculative elements that make us think. Generous in his engagement with Fanonian scholarship, Williams never leans upon it and offers a clear voice and perspective that brings us through Fanon’s life and onwards into his after-lives. A pleasure to read, this book is an impressive and confident scholarly achievement."

— Patrick Crowley, University College Cork

"Frantz Fanon was a phenomenon, as this new biography sets out to explain . . . Williams’s biography recognizes Fanon’s shortcomings, including his personal shortcomings, as well as appreciating his extraordinary achievements . . . these details do have relevance, illustrating the ways in which his understanding of racism and its insidious effects were shaped, along with his thinking on transformative change. This book is, in other words, an encouragement to read Fanon for ourselves."

— Morning Star (UK)

"Williams gives us an account of the life and ideas of its protagonist that is sharply focused and wise."

— Wall Street Journal

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Abbreviations

Introduction: Fanon: Doctor, Writer, Revolutionary

1. More French than French: Boyhood on a Colonial Island

2. Fighting for the Republic: From Dissidence to Combat

3. Return to the Native Land: With and Against Césaire

4. The Voyage In: Love and Loathing in Lyon

5. Getting Under the Colonial Skin, Leaping Out of History

6. Socialtherapy: The Breakthrough of Saint-Alban

7. Blida: Where Medicine Meets War

8. Public Acts of Provocation: Fanon in Performance

9. My Name is Ibrahim: Exile in Tunis

10. Lifting the Veil/Preaching Revolution

11. Accra, Pan-Africanism and the Southern Front

12. Down to the Wire: The Damned Reborn

13. The Final Crossing

14. Fanon’s After-Lives

References

Select Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Photo Acknowledgements

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