Fanon: A Reader

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.

Author: Nigel C. Gibson
Publisher: Polity Press
Published: 06/27/2003
Pages: 264
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.38w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9780745622613

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2004 pg. 1118

About the Author
Nigel C. Gibson is Director of the Honors Program at Emerson College, Boston, and a research associate in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University and the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard University.

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