The Wretched of the Earth

Apr 29, 2025 12:29 PM

Author:Frantz Fanon,Constance Farrington

'This century's most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism' Angela Davis

Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule and first published in 1961, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth has provided inspiration for anti-colonial movements ever since, analysing the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. With power and anger, Fanon makes clear the economic and psychological degradation inflicted by imperialism. It was Fanon, himself a psychotherapist, who exposed the connection between colonial war and mental disease, who showed how the fight for freedom must be combined with building a national culture, and who showed the way ahead, through revolutionary violence, to socialism.

'In clear language, in words that can only have been written in the cool heat of rage, he showed us the internal theatre of racism' Deborah Levy

Reviews

This century's most compelling theorist of racism and colonialism

—— Angela Davis

Have the courage to read this book

—— Jean-Paul Sartre

Fanon details the impact of colonialism on the psyches of black people. For the first time, I was able to understand empire as more than just an economic phenomenon, and in turn how much Africa's decolonisation was expected to reverse. Reading it more than 50 years after publication was a visceral confrontation with a legacy that remains a shadow over black people

—— Ore Ogunbiyi , Guardian

In clear language, in words that can only have been written in the cool heat of rage, he showed us the internal theatre of racism

—— Deborah Levy , Independent

The writing of Malcolm X or Eldridge Cleaver or Amiri Baraka or the Black Panther leaders reveals how profoundly they have been moved by the thoughts of Frantz Fanon

—— Boston Globe

This is not so much a book as a rock thrown through the window of the West. It is the Communist Manifesto of the anticolonial revolution, and as such it is highly important for any Western reader who wants to understand the emotional force behind that revolution

—— Time

The most comprehensive look at the work of these intrepid sailors . . . A celebration of their ingenuity and valor

—— Baltimore Sun

Reads like an adventure novel, but it's all to real

—— Seyour M. Hersh, author of The Dark Side of Camelot

The veterans of the 'Silent Service' are silent no more

—— John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy , Wall Street Journal

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