Customer Reviews

Frantz Fanon: A Biography

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A superb introduction to French colonial thought and literature. For those of you who are interested in understanding the historical context within which this remarkable figure lived, I highly recommend this book. David Macey carefully addresses the various misrepresentations of Fanon, such as that by Hannah Arendt (most of the French of the time and others), who portrayed Fanon as simply being synonomous with violence. Fanon was a much more complex person than that: Driven, highly intelligent, a product of the French educational system, of WWII, of racism, a psychiatrist, a writer, yet born in Martinique and, after accepting a position in Algeria (rather than stay in France or return to Martinique), finds himself embroiled in an anti-France Algerian nationalist movement. The influences on him, his various professional decisions, as well as those that led him to direct involvement in wider African affairs, are carefully considered and documented. The footnotes, bibliography, and index are all much appreciated by this reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will surely refer to it again.

This book, though enormous, was an easy and entertaining read. I have really only one objection. The book was a great history book but there weren't enough details about Fanon the man. I do think that historical contextualization is essential in biographies and in fact they're one of my favorite ways to learn history.

However, you do expect to read a narrative of someone's life, whereas most of the time, I was reading a history of the Algerian Revolution. Which I wanted to anyway and have no problem with, that's just not what I thought I was getting into. I was greatly moved by Fanon's tragic early death and by his humanist ideals, and I think Macey was right to emphasize, as the famous academic Homi Bhabha recently did, that Fanon's advocacy of anti-colonial violence is not the most important or enduring aspect of his legacy. First and foremost Fanon wanted to see a better and more just world, and his unrelenting passion to empower the poorest of the poor-the wretched of the earth-is a justly lasting, powerful, and evocative sentiment.

However, there just wasn't much about him. I didn't learn all that much about him. The details on his personal life or intimate relationships were very scarce. I understand that not many records remain that describe his relationship with his wife or family but when you pick up a biography you expect intimate personal details that help make a person fully human.

If not enough of that exists anymore, then Macey, a talented and sensitive writer, should have called this book an analysis of Fanon's WRITINGS, not his life. Because most of what Macey tells us about Fanon he gets out of Fanon's "Black Skin, White Masks" and his other writings-he provides few interviews and even fewer insights. Maybe it's too late to write that book, but if you want to call this a biography, you have to make it one.

I still recommend the book if you are interested in Fanon's writings and the Algerian Revolution, which I was and am. But if you want to learn about Fanon the man, forget about it. Nothing in the book made me feel as if I knew anything other than Fanon the theorist and revolutionary. You get no sense of any other dimension of him than you would get if you read all his books.

David Macey's book allow us to understand the contributions of Frantz Fanon to the treatment of patients with mental disorders. Fanon was one of the first one in the Third World to include the ecology of the patient in the treatment of mental disturbances. Some of his innovations are applicable to the treatment of the urban poor living in the neglected communities.

Carlos J. Sanchez, MA

CARLOSJUANSANCHEZ.COM

Bobby Seale gives virtually sole credit to Fanon's works as inspiration for the organization of the Black Panther Party with Huey Newton. Frantz Fanon led a brief yet complex life fighting racist communist French colonialism in his adopted homeland of Algeria. This biography is not a quick read, and is intended for people that are willing to take their time getting through this 500 page monstrosity. In order to understand the opposite views of African politics through French colonialism during the same time period, reading about Leopold Senghor is an absolute must. Bravo to anyone seriously reading these philosophies! It's uncanny how much of Fanon's principles still relate to modern politics.