Frantz Fanon
From ArticleWorld
Frantz Fanon is a famous author from the Caribbean. His many writings are credited with motivating anti-colonial movements all over the world during the twentieth century.
Background
Frantz Fanon was born on July 20, 1925 in Martinique, then a French colony. His racial background included African, Tamil, and European.
In his youth, Fanon studied at the prestigious Lycee Schoelcher in Martinique. However, upon the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, Fanon became acutely aware of his black skin. The French blockaded Martinique and troops were rumored to be responsible for vast amounts of racial and sexual harassment to the local people.
At eighteen, Fanon escaped to Dominca and joined the Free French Forces. He ultimately enlisted in the French Army and was present at the deadly battles of Alsace. In 1944, at the age of nineteen, Fanon was wounded and received the Criox de Guerre medal.
In 1945, Fanon returned to Martinique and worked on Aime Cesaire’s communist campaign for a parliamentary delegate position in the original National Assembly of the Fourth Republic. Fanon also earned his bachelor’s degree and returned to France to study medicine and psychiatry as well as literature, drama, and philosophy.
In 1951, Fanon became a licensed psychiatrist and practiced in France and later in Algeria. In Algeria, he worked at the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital and developed a groundbreaking therapy that involved a patient’s cultural history. Fanon trained other staff in his treatment as well.
Fanon died of leukemia-related causes on December 6, 1961 in Washington, D.C. He body is buried in Algeria.
Partial List of Writings
- Black Skin, White Masks
- The Wretched of the Earth
- Toward the African Revolution
- A Dying Colonialism