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Frantz Fanon:A Biography
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Comprehensive and eloquent account of Fanon’s personal, intellectual and political life
Born in Martinique, Frantz Fanon (1925–61) trained as a psychiatrist in Lyon before taking up a post in colonial Algeria. He had already experienced racism as a volunteer in the Free French Army, in which he saw combat at the end of the Second World War. In Algeria, Fanon came into contact with the Front de Libération Nationale, whose ruthless struggle for independence was met with exceptional violence from the French forces. He identified closely with the liberation movement, and his political sympathies eventually forced him out the country, whereupon he became a propagandist and ambassador for the FLN, as well as a seminal anticolonial theorist.
David Macey’s eloquent life of Fanon provides a comprehensive account of a complex individual’s personal, intellectual and political development. It is also a richly detailed depiction of postwar French culture. Fanon is revealed as a flawed and passionate humanist deeply committed to eradicating colonialism.
Now updated with new historical material, Frantz Fanon remains the definitive biography of a truly revolutionary thinker.
Reviews
This year’s biographical tour de force.
Macey’s richly informative and engaging biography provides the historical, social and cultural context that is essential for understanding this passionate and courageous intellectual.
A prodigiously researched, absorbing book about the mind and the passion of a twentieth-century revolutionary.
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... stands in a class of its own. It is unmatched in its care and attention to detail, in its author’s knowledge of the multiple intellectual, cultural and political contexts in which the man moved
New Humanist -
Not just a lucid and well-researched account of the man and his works, it is one of the best books about contemporary history to have been published in recent years.
Literary Review -
Invaluable to scholars ... an excellent guide.
Publishers Weekly -
A valuable and comprehensive introduction to the man and his work. David Macey is certainly someone who knows Fanon and the context extremely well and he writes lucidly and informa- tively. For anyone interested in the Algerian war, colonialism or Fanon himself, this really is a must-read.
Morning Star -
One cannot write about Algeria without reading Fanon’s political works ... [and] Macey explores them brilliantly
, Guardian