Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique, a French colony, in 1925. As a young man, he volunteered to fight in De Gualle’s army for the liberation of France, and trained to become a doctor and psychiatrist. His experiences as a black man under French colonial rule had a profound effect on him. In 1952, he wrote Black Skin, White Masks, a powerful analysis of the effects of racism on the human psyche.
He was later reassigned to a hospital in French Algeria. It was here that he became involved in the rebellion of the National Liberation Front (FLN), who fought to break free from colonial power, and the draconian response of the French authorities, which included widespread mass killings and the systematic use of torture. Fanon’s work for the FLN as a propagandist and psychiatrist became highly contentious. His final work, The Wretched of the Earth, was published in 1961 just before Fanon died at the age of 36. It has proved to be one of the most controversial and influential books of its time.
The Rebel’s Clinic is a searing biography of the short and harrowing life of Frantz Fanon, a man whose legacy is nuanced, disputed, powerful, and in a time where the topics of empire and race have become increasingly pressing, still very much felt today.
