The Wretched of the Earth

The Wretched of the Earth, published in 1961 by François Maspero a few weeks before the death of Frantz Fanon, is his major work and one of the founding texts of the global anticolonial movement. Prefaced by Jean-Paul Sartre, the book is both a clinical analysis of colonial violence and a manifesto for the emancipation of oppressed peoples.

Fanon examines there the stages of national consciousness, the role of the peasantry in revolution, and the traps of postcolonial bourgeois nationalism. The work was read on barricades as well as in universities, and it influenced the Black Panthers in the United States, Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness movement in South Africa, and anticolonial struggles around the world.

Fanon’s approach, both clinical and political, remains a reference for understanding the mechanisms of colonialism and decolonization.

Sources

• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon#%C5%92uvres
• Open Library data: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL31677379W