Frantz Fanon

A Biography

David Macey

Picador

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Born in Martinique, then as now a departement of France, Frantz Fanon (l925-61) trained as a psychiatrist in Lyons before taking up a post in colonial Algeria. He had already experienced racism as a soldier in the Free French Army, for which he had volunteered and in whose ranks he saw combat during the liberation of France. In Algeria, he came into contact with the Front de Liberation National whose ruthless struggle for an independent Algeria was met with quite exceptional violence by the French Army. Fanon identified completely with the FLN and soon became a marked man. Forced to flee Algeria when he resigned his post, Fanon subsequently worked with the FLN as a propagandist and ambassador.

Based on extensive and original research, this is the most compete and objective biography of Fanon yet written. It sweeps away the myths that have grown up around him and reveals Fanon to be a complex figure, infinitely more interesting than the theorist of anti-colonial violence celebrated by the left in the 60s. Macey shows Fanon to have been a man formed in the context of the French Caribbean, with its history of slavery and racism, and traces Fanon's intellectual career as a political thinker and psychiatrist with great care, setting it against the background of post-war French culture.

David Macey has done justice for the first time to the extraordinary life of a complex figure, flawed in some respects but fundamentally a humanist committed to the eradication of colonialism, a man whose angry and eloquent writings are still of fierce relevance today.

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Reviews

Praise for Frantz Fanon

"David Macey has written a prodigiously researched, absorbing book about the mind and the passion of a twentieth-century revolutionary. Frantz Fanon is the first comprehensive biography in three decades; it is also the best, the most intellectually rigorous and the most judicious."—The New York Times Book Review

"David Macey's richly informative and engaging biography provides the historical, social and cultural context that is essential for understanding this passionate and courageous intellectual."—The Washington Post

"In the first biography in some time, Macey offers a sensitive and powerful account of Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary, psychiatrist, Third World theorist, and author . . . Macey's writing and research is rich with historical context and personal information."—Library Journal (starred)

"David Macey's Frantz Fanon is this year's biographical tour de force."—New Statesman

"Not just a lucid and well-researched account of the man and his works, it is one of the best books about contemporary history to have been published in recent years."—Literary Review

"A fascinating study of a passionate and intelligent thinker."—Scotland on Sunday

"Macey does a terrific job throughout reconstructing the contexts in which Fanon conceived and wrote his works, and the terms with which one might best approach them. The book will be invaluable to scholars, but those looking for an entré into postwar Francophone literature and its political militancy will find this book an excellent guide to notoriously thorny works, and to their author, who died of cancer soon after his illness was discovered."—Publishers Weekly

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About the Author

David Macey

David Macey has translated some twenty books from the French. He is the author of Lacan in Context, the acclaimed The Lives of Michel Foucault, and The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory. He lives in Leeds, England.

David Macey

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Available Formats and Book Details

Frantz Fanon
A Biography
David Macey

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Picador
June 2002
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312300425
ISBN10: 0312300425
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches, 656 pages, Includes 8 maps
$20.00

Hardcover

Hardcover
Picador
June 2001
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780312275501
ISBN10: 0312275501
6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches, 656 pages, Includes 8 maps
$40.00
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