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Overview
The Wretched of the Earth, published in French in 1961, is Frantz Fanon's analysis of colonialism, anti-colonial struggle and the problems of independence. Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who worked in Algeria, argues that colonial rule is sustained by violence and divides the world into two opposed zones. He examines the psychological injury of colonisation, the role of violence in liberation, and the risk that new national elites will reproduce old hierarchies. It remains a central text of anti-colonial thought.
Context
Fanon trained in France, headed a psychiatric ward at Blida-Joinville in French-ruled Algeria, and joined the National Liberation Front in the Algerian war of independence. He wrote the book while dying of leukaemia and died in December 1961, soon after its publication. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a well-known preface. It appeared as many African and Asian states were gaining independence.
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Psychology of colonialism; the colonised internalise inferiority.
- Use in training and coaching
- Linguistic insecurity in English learners in South Asia: deeply relevant to spoken English programmes
- Connects to
- Hegel's recognition; Said
- What to read
- Black Skin ch. 1 (language)
- Text (date)
- Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Black Skin, White Masks (1952, 1961)
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