Frantz Fanon

In 1952, he denounced the cultural violence of colonialism in his first essay: Black Skin, White Masks (French: Peau noire, masques blancs).

As a psychiatrist, writer and fighter for anticolonialism, he analyzed the consequences of colonization on the colonized, as well as the process of decolonization from sociological, philosophical and psychiatric angles.

In 1953, he became chief physician at the Blida psychiatric hospital in Algeria. There, he learned, analyzed and treated the many effects of colonization on the population.
During the Algerian War, he treated French soldiers by day and national liberation fighters by night.

In 1956, he resigned from the Blida psychiatric hospital to join the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in Algeria. A few weeks later, he was sent to Tunisia, where he became a leading independence figure, penning major works for the anticolonialist movement such as “A dying colonialism” and “The Wretched of the Earth”. He also became ambassador to Ghana for the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA).

Frantz Fanon died of leukemia in December 1961, after a lifetime of dedication to the cause of oppressed peoples. 

At his request, he was buried in Algeria, after being honored with a state funeral. His last book, Les Damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth), was a worldwide success from the moment of its publication in 1961, establishing itself as a major text on Third Worldism and the anticolonial struggle.

His thought and action left a definitive mark on the 20th century.