Nigel C. Gibson – författare

Frantz Fanon was a French psychiatrist turned Algerian revolutionary of Martinican origin, and one of the most important and controversial thinkers of the postwar period. A veritable “intellect on fire,” Fanon was a radical thinker with original theories on race, revolution, violence, identity and agency.

This book is an excellent introduction to the ideas and legacy of Fanon. Gibson explores him as a truly complex character in the context of his time and beyond. He argues that for Fanon, theory has a practical task to help change the world. Thus Fanon’s “untidy dialectic,” Gibson contends, is a philosophy of liberation that includes cultural and historical issues and visions of a future society. In a profoundly political sense, Gibson asks us to reevaluate Fanon’s contribution as a critic of modernity and reassess in a new light notions of consciousness, humanism, and social change.

This is a fascinating study that will interest undergraduates and above in postcolonial studies, literary theory, cultural studies, sociology, politics, and social and political theory, as well as general readers.

We inhabit extraordinary times: times in which we are acutely aware of the intensity of what revolutionary thinker Frantz Fanon called "the glare of history''s floodlights." The velocity and scale at which the revolt against police murder that began in Minnesota after the death of George Floyd on May 25th and moved throughout the US, and then other parts of the world, was astonishing. It was impossible to predict, but then, in retrospect, it is George Floyd''s death becomes a nodal point: calling for action as well as rethinking and self-clarification. Thinking about this moment with the world revolutionary Frantz Fanon, we need to be aware of continuities and discontinuities - or, as he puts it, opacities - between the ages, his and ours. Fanon is always speaking to us, but often in ways we cannot hear. We have to work to listen to him and to understand the new contexts and meanings in relative opacity. It is this constant dialogue that helps illuminate the present and enable ongoing fidelity to Fanon''s call in the conclusion of The Wretched of the Earth the necessity to work out new concepts to confront one of Fanon''s greatest concerns, the betrayal of the revolutionary movement. In this pamphlet we consider how Fanon''s idea of liberation is connected with "the rationality of revolt." The practice of engaging Fanon not only with revolt but with the reason or rationality of revolt connects with Fanon''s idea of how this liberated humanity is a product of a new consciousness of collectivity open to rethink everything.