“Fanon, penseur de la nation et critique de l’identité,” a previously unpublished text by Georges Labica, preceded by an introduction by Stathis Kouvélakis, appeared on Contretemps. Revue de critique communiste on 17 December 2025, as part of this year’s tributes to Frantz Fanon on the centenary of his birth. Its English translation and publication on Communis takes place within the framework of the collaborative partnership between Communis and Contretemps.
“With Fanon, we are witness to the journey of a West Indian who claimed French identity to the point of committing himself to and risking his life for France, and who died an Algerian. This is a rejection of identity, and not a series of identities successively embraced by Fanon. A rejection of any imposed identity.”
— Georges Labica
***
Introduction
Nation and Revolutionary Violence: Georges Labica, Practitioner and Reader of Fanon
Compared to the prominence it has achieved in the English-speaking world and to what is nowadays referred to as the “Global South,” Francophone literature on Fanon is strikingly modest in size, a sign of the persistent reluctance that has hampered the reception of his thought.
Within this meager corpus, the few texts devoted to Fanon by Georges Labica occupy an all-too singular place. Indeed, through the latter’s direct involvement in the Algerian people’s struggle for liberation, in the ranks of the National Liberation Front (FLN), and through his participation in the editorial team of El Moudjahid, the organ of the Front to which Fanon was one of the main contributors, Labica was, to our knowledge, the only French philosopher—a Marxist and a Communist at that—to have practiced Fanon even before having studied him, and without ever having been able to contact him[1]. Their encounter is therefore similar to that between Marx and those “militants [and] leaders of the First International,” whom Labica, in an essay from the 1980s, compares to the “guerrillas of Guatemala or El Salvador”: “[they] had not read the first volume of Capital” but “practiced it nonetheless, in the open competition between the workers’ ‘parties’ and their doctrines.”[2]
Labica’s few writings on the thinking of the Martinican revolutionary therefore take on particular significance[3]. On the occasion, this year, of Fanon’s centenary, we revisit what we consider to be Labica’s most accomplished and original work on Fanon: his contribution to the symposium “Un Fanon inconnu” (An Unknown Fanon), held on December 3, 2001, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, on the fortieth anniversary of Fanon’s death. Rather than discussing a “nationalist Fanon,” as the contribution’s title suggests, Labica discusses in it Fanon’s conception of the nation, emphasizing both the radical departure from any form of essentialism and the universalizing openness of such vision. He also clarifies the meaning that “violence” has for the author of The Wretched of the Earth, particularly the “counter-violence” of the subjugated, which has given rise to so many misunderstandings and distortions.
It is in this twofold direction that we must seek the way in which Labica carried on and extended Fanon’s legacy, in a manner more profound than the various scattered references would suggest: on the one hand, in a reflection on the nation, radically critical of both Eurocentrism and imperialism (which, in the world that followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc, continues its march under the guise of “globalization”)[4], as well as nationalist myths. On the other hand, in a long-term work on violence and its place in revolutionary processes.
At the intersection of these two axes lies Labica’s posthumous work, his egregiously ignored magnum opus, Theorie de la violence[5], which is no exaggeration to say is entirely imbued with Fanon’s concern regarding the relationship between violence, subjectivation, and revolutionary strategy. Labica situates Fanon in the tradition of Sorel—the antithesis of an economistic and reductive Marxism that foregoes the subjective, mobilizing dimension of the counter-violence of the subjugated. For it is Fanon who allows us to think of this form of violence as the inevitable response to the suffering inflicted on the oppressed by the violence of the “system,” in other words, that inherent in social relations of exploitation and domination. In support of his argument, Labica quotes this famous passage from The Wretched of the Earth: “Colonialism is not a thinking machine, it is not a body endowed with reason. It is violence in its natural state and can only bow to greater violence.”[6] And Labica continues: “For Fanon, this violence, which he considers to be an ‘absolute praxis,’ not only plays a liberating role, it is cathartic, as in Sorel, for both the individual and the group.” After another quote, this time from Mao[7], the conclusion allows us to generalize the argument: “The system is what liberating violence seeks to attack.”[8]
This, as Fanon clearly saw[9], renders illusory all strategies of “non-violence,” or, more precisely, reveals them to be something other than what they claim to be: a form of denial that justifies powerlessness and can go so far as to turn the denied violence against those it stigmatizes as “infidels,” “delinquents,” “irrational” actors, or “terrorists.”
Of course, much has changed in the world since Fanon’s days. The violence “in its natural state” of colonialism has been replaced by the no less dehumanizing and deadly violence of globalized capitalism, a new configuration of an imperialism rid of its old-fashioned territorial empires. Labica analyzes the total, truly unlimited nature of this violence, since, inherent as such violence is in globalization, it permeates and reshapes all social relations, combining all the specific forms of violence with the various forms of domination to propel them into a deadly, warlike, destructive headlong rush that destroys humans and the planet.
It is therefore Fanon’s approach that once again appears to be the only viable one. It involves embracing the liberating counter-violence of the oppressed, giving it a strategic and organized form, adapted to national contexts, which alone is capable of putting an end to the infinite violence of the system. This strategic counter-violence is not necessarily synonymous with war or armed conflict:
In politics, as in nature, when a catastrophe occurs, it is the poor who suffer first and foremost. Peace, that of the happy city, not that of the graveyards, is their dearest aspiration. This does not mean, as Machiavelli admirably established, that every revolution must be bloody and murderous.”[10]
Far from opposing democracy, the counter-violence of the subjugated allows us to reconnect with its original meaning, that of a popular uprising, a revolutionary moment that establishes a new legitimacy[11]. It means embracing the conflictual, antagonistic dimension of revolts and struggles, recognizing the need to see them through to the end, “by any means necessary.” This is in stark contrast to the denials of a certain left, quick to “condemn all violence” when, in the “working-class neighborhoods” of our imperial metropolises or the camps of occupied Palestine, the uproar of those who rise up against the order of a barbaric and decaying world erupts. It is not in these times of genocide broadcast in real time that the intertwined reflections of Frantz Fanon and Georges Labica are most irrelevant.
Stathis Kouvélakis
***
Fanon, a nationalist and a critic of identity — A contribution by Georges Labica
It is somewhat a source of comfort to be here among you, as I have felt every time I have had the opportunity—regrettably rare—to speak about Fanon. I remember that Marcel Manville did me the honor of sponsoring the Fanon Committee he had created and invited me to the meeting he was organizing in Martinique. Unfortunately, an Air France strike prevented me from attending. Another event dedicated to Fanon was held in 1987 in Algiers, at the Riyad El Fath Center, but the proceedings were never published.
The topic of my intervention today falls within the scope of these days dedicated to discovering “an unknown Fanon,” which is a good idea because for too long a time all sorts of interventions concerning Fanon, whether written or oral, have been extremely reductive due to the impact in France of Sartre’s preface to The Wretched of the Earth (about which there is much to say). Therefore, if we can now contribute to restoring this figure in all his complexity, our efforts will not have been in vain.
The topic I will address today is “Fanon, a nationalist and a critic of identity.” This title may be somewhat ambiguous insofar as the terms “nationalist” and “nationalism” themselves have historical connotations. In the 19th century, their meanings were not the same as they are today. Are we sure that Fanon’s thinking is the same as ours? Above all, these are terms that are quickly seized upon by the media and journalists, whose vocabulary is often limited, distorted, marked by current events, and therefore approximate. I will simply share with you a few thoughts that this topic suggests to me.
The first point I will address is the rejection of a forced identity. There is a rejection of identity in Fanon that is interesting because it gives us a measure of his commitment and a measure of his evolution. Fanon is not someone who came to thought and speech with a predetermined background. Naturally, like all of us, Fanon had a background, but he chose to listen to his time, to listen to his circumstances, to take on the situations into which he ventured and which shaped his personality. This is why I see great significance in some of the statements made in his first book, Peau noire, masques blancs, which has often been said to have been somewhat overshadowed by his subsequent works, particularly The Wretched of the Earth. There are some very powerful phrases in Peau noire, masques blancs that are worth remembering because I think they give a good idea of Fanon’s personality. He writes: “No, I do not have the right to be Black.”[12]
What does this mean? It means that Fanon very quickly rejected the dominant system of thought, which consisted in asserting one’s identity, in this case one’s “negritude”—because that was the theme of the time. He did so in a combative manner, by dissociating himself from white people and claiming an identity that would somehow respond to the aggressiveness of white identity. From that moment on, Fanon was convinced that if there was both an awareness of humanity and a meaning to the struggles for liberation, it was precisely because they transcended the dualism, the Manichaeism, between Black and White. In the same work, we find this other passage: “I am French. I am interested in French culture, French civilization, and the French people […] When men […] invaded France to enslave it, my calling as a Frenchman told me that my place was not on the sidelines, but at the heart of the problem.”[13]
It should be noted that this young man from the Antilles, at the age of 18—which certainly was not common—decided to join the fight alongside France, precisely because he rejected this imposed identity. He served in the Free French Forces. At a very young age, he behaved like a hero, which gave him the opportunity to leave his country, discover other people, take part in other battles, and consequently rub shoulders with the world. You also know that Fanon died an Algerian. The fundamental choice of his existence was this: to fight and die for the nationality he had chosen, that of his brothers in arms, the Algerians.
So here we have the journey of a West Indian who claimed French identity to the point of committing himself to and risking his life for France, and who died an Algerian. This is a rejection of identity—which has nothing to do with the idea of a series of identities that Fanon successively embraced. No, what we are talking about is the rejection of an imposed identity. Understanding this also makes it easier to understand what the nationalist cause meant to Fanon, the connection between his history and the message he wanted to convey. Let us therefore put an end to an utterly absurd, misleading, and ultimately dishonest dispute raised by various commentators, notably Alice Cherki in her book and, with great force, by Irène Gendzier[14]. This is the thesis that Albert Memmi felt compelled to develop in a study published in the journal Esprit in 1971, entitled “La vie impossible de Frantz Fanon”[15]. I will only summarize this text because I find it quite unbearable: “Born in a French department, Fanon believed himself to be French and white. Moving to the capital to study, he discovered, not without great pain, that he was Caribbean and black in a metropolis. In a fit of rage, he decided that he would be neither French nor Caribbean, but Algerian.” Such a thesis may, at most, teach us something about the behavior and existence of Memmi himself, who was far from assuming the identities he accuses Fanon of not respecting, but let’s not confuse the issues. We need to understand why Fanon spoke out, why he wrote the books he wrote.
The second point I want to address is the idea of nationalism. I will begin by saying that the term “nationalism” itself is one that Fanon uses very little, and when he does, particularly in The Wretched of the Earth, it is not without suspicion. Fanon sees very clearly how certain forms of nationalist or nationalitarian demands lead to the confinement of identity. We could cite texts in which he expresses his reservations about the notion of nationalism. His use of the epithet “national,” however, is quite different, which is crucial: the idea of national consciousness and the idea of national struggle, which are very closely linked to each other in Fanon’s work.
National consciousness and national struggle: I even believe that this is perhaps where we should look for his fundamental approach. Here we find Fanon’s protest against imposed identity, and his response in the affirmation of a national purpose that does not allow itself to be confined within the cage of nationalism.
This is why these two expressions, “national consciousness” and “national struggle” are associated, particularly in The Wretched of the Earth, with a third, that of national culture. It is important to keep these three terms in mind in order to understand the extent to which the notion of “national” and “national character” is, for Fanon, the very source of the dynamism of his thinking and of the determination he puts not into ensuring traditional nationalism—which could be seen as a defense of heritage—but into literally projecting into the future what must be: the link between national consciousness, national struggle, and national culture.
This is why Fanon writes. It is for this project, and to set in motion this path—first the Algerian revolution, in which he found himself, but also the whole of Africa. The message to Africa is: “Do not be afraid to assert who you are, but assert who you are in order to promote something that is greater than who you are.” This is a far cry from nationalism as commonly understood.
Fanon’s approach is essentially situated in the Algerian context. First, on a professional level. Practicing in Algeria, he tries to see, as a psychiatrist, what the sick, the patients of this country, represent from the point of view of the specificity of their symptoms. On this subject, Fanon provides a number of insights and studies that represent a sharp break with the preconceived and deeply racist ideas of his colleagues who held university chairs in Algiers[16].
I will leave this point aside for now to emphasize more clearly what Fanon perceived: the crucible that was the Algerian struggle. He saw it very clearly as a transformation that could be summed up by saying that what he saw in the Algerian liberation struggle was the transition from a particularly harsh state of alienation—since for Algerians it lasted 130 years, 130 years of very humiliating, very alienating colonization—to a liberating surge that did not consist in espousing the approach of the one against whom the struggle was being waged, but rather in drawing from within oneself, and thus from beyond one’s alienation, the forces that would enable not only liberation but also cultural and collective fulfillment. This is why Fanon, within the context of the African revolution, chose a number of concrete themes that highlight this principle of transition, a true insurrection, moving from a situation of colonial oppression to one of liberation.
It is interesting to note that when Fanon proposed The Wretched to his publisher, such was not the title he had chosen, but Réalités d’une nation, or Realities of a Nation, certainly a less “catchy” title but one much stronger in terms of political thought. Drawing on his experience in Algeria and on very concrete examples from his life, he sought to convey a universal message of hope and the desire for liberation of the damned of the earth in Africa, but also in Latin America.
For the younger among us, it is necessary to evoke a context that is difficult to imagine today, a context of uprising and extraordinary hope. Let us remember Bandung, in 1955-1956, and the great figures who emerged from the South, from the former colonized countries, those who heralded and symbolized a future of independence and freedom—Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Cuba’s victory, Fidel Castro, Che, Ben Barka, Curiel, among others. Fanon was at the heart of this era, echoing an unprecedented historical upheaval, one that we know, sadly, was defeated by the forces of imperialism.
The concrete examples, I would remind you, are fairly well known. Fanon focuses on the theme of the Algerian women’s veil—the phenomenology of the veil, its significance in the context of colonization: the veil claimed, maintained during the liberation phase, and then literally torn off when the prospect of victory appeared, when women committed themselves in the total and decisive way that they do in struggles[17].
The other theme, which is familiar to him and which he uses to further illuminate this attitude, is that of radio. In Algiers today, satellite dishes are everywhere; every household is keen to have its own. For Fanon, radio already represented, for peasants and colonized people confined within Algeria, an indispensable means of information for the liberation process; radio was a window on the world. Fanon emphasizes the role played by the transistor radio on several occasions, in L’an V de la révolution algérienne as well as in The Wretched of the Earth. Let’s listen to him:
It is sometimes surprising that colonized people, rather than buying a dress for their wives, buy a transistor radio. We shouldn’t be. The colonized are convinced that their destiny is being played out now. They live in an end-of-the-world atmosphere and believe that nothing should escape them. That is why they understand Phouma and Phoumi, Lumumba and Tschombé, Ahidjo and Moumié, Kenyatta… those who are periodically put forward to replace them.”[18]
The third theme is that of the family. Fanon captures the Algerian family in the dynamic process of its transformation. It is breaking down and restructuring itself, whether in terms of the relationships between father and son, older brother and younger brother, daughter and father, or the couple. “Men,” he writes, “cease to be right, women cease to be silent.”[19]
For Fanon, national character is precisely the path that leads to the appropriation of universal values. Any dissociation is prohibited. Fanon rejects any identity that would reduce him to his original condition. Hence all the debates in which Fanon engaged with people like Senghor and Césaire. In his speeches at the Congress of Black Writers, he clearly affirms the position found in the conclusion of the chapter on national culture in The Wretched of the Earth: “If man is what he does, then we will say that the most urgent thing today for the African intellectual is the construction of his nation.”[20]
Thus, the nation is not presented as a heritage. Fanon continues:
If this construction is true, that is, if it reflects the manifest will of the people, if it reveals the impatience of the African peoples, then national construction is necessarily accompanied by the discovery of the promotion of universal values. It is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness arises and is enlivened, and this dual emergence is, in short, the focus of all culture.[21]
This point was the subject of debate, particularly on the eve of Algeria’s independence, because the question of national culture was indeed raised, as was that of its vehicle—namely, language. Should French be abandoned altogether, or should some form of bilingualism be adopted, and if so, how? Should there be a return to Arabic? But which Arabic, given that Algerians spoke neither classical Arabic nor the modern Arabic of the Middle East?
In discussions, particularly those initiated by Mustapha Lachraf, bilingualism was seen as a betrayal. A series of “papers” on national culture had highlighted the need for literacy, setting aside the choice between Arabic and French. The then Minister of Education, Abdelhamid Benhamida, had rallied to this formula. However, the campaign did not succeed, for reasons that I cannot elaborate on here, but which, as one might expect, are directly related to the nature and the course of the Algerian revolution.
Perhaps we should also recognize that Fanon’s definition of national character, his uncompromising critique of identity, reveals something idealistic in that it underestimates the reality of the existential framework in which individuals find themselves caught up, which weighs on them like a determination that is independent of colonialism. However, we must not forget Fanon’s revolutionary, rather than pedagogical, concern, which was to act against the grain in order to “transform the world.”
Decades have passed ever since Fanon died in the early 1960s. What conclusions can we draw today? It must be noted that the promises of Bandung, which Fanon tried to echo, went nowhere, as I have already pointed out. Africa, and in particular Algeria, the countries Fanon had frequented, did not experience or achieve the transformation that would have raised them to the level that, in his enthusiasm and according to his militant convictions, he wished for them.
On the contrary, the fallouts have been such that sometimes it feels as if entire continents were condemned by forms of violence that Fanon did not foresee, such as imperialism and neocolonialism. Fanon’s deep faith and talent for persuasion are evident in an episode such as this: upon learning of the death of Félix Moumié[22], he visited the family. Félix’s father was there, and Fanon said of him: “His face was weathered, impassive, expressionless, [he] listened to me talk to him about his son. And, gradually, the father gave way to the militant.”[23]
This was Fanon’s approach: to bring out the militant, in other words, the forward-looking, universalizing identity behind the father’s despondency, but also behind social conditioning. Overall, things did not turn out that way. But there is less reason than ever to give up on it.
I will conclude with two remarks. First, the fact that Fanon was rather misunderstood, even in Algeria itself. Since then, Algerians have changed course. Because Fanon is someone who is difficult for everyone to digest, like any revolutionary. He was little understood or very poorly understood at first. I remember that when I was working at El Moudjahid, we were the only ones to mark the first anniversary of Fanon’s death in 1962. On that occasion, I published the first bibliography, which was reproduced by Philipe Lucas in his book[24].
We also published an unknown letter from Fanon[25], which his wife Josie had entrusted to us. It was Fanon’s letter of resignation addressed to the Resident Governor General, Robert Lacoste. This initiative, it must be said, fell rather flat. I had learned that when Fanon was in Tunisia, he had given training courses to border army officers, and that these courses had been recorded. Despite my repeated attempts to contact the National Liberation Army (ALN) headquarters, I was never able to obtain the tapes. Even today, no one can tell us where these tapes are or whether they still exist[26]. There is no doubt that there was reluctance towards Fanon.
I see the reason for this in Fanon’s attitude towards national character but also in his criticism of identity. Here and there, some Algerians were not afraid to say: “Yes, Fanon is Algerian, he is a hero, he is one of us in the struggle for liberation, but what does he know about the Arab-Muslim world? He knows nothing, or very little.” In fact, Fanon was as hostile to Arabism as he was to Negritude, by virtue of his own logic, which today would condemn all forms of communitarianism. So at first there were all these reservations, which then faded away.
I remember, in relation to the particularly powerful pages I have already quoted, that during the Battle of Algiers, following the repression carried out in the Casbah by the military, the Casbah was practically emptied of its men, and it was the women who took responsibility into their own hands, who took charge of the revolution, both in the city and in the linkages between the city and the countryside: they had to provide food, clothing, and weapons. This was crucial, but what happened afterwards? The revolution was not accomplished and, under the pressure of circumstances and narrow identity-based demands, these same women, who had contributed their courage, were sent home.
Furthermore, how can we ignore politics as seen from the inside? Fanon, in Tunis, in the midst of the FLN leadership, was well aware of the internal strife that divided Algerian leaders and which would result in serious consequences brought about by power rivalries after independence. There was little desire to give this witness a voice, even posthumously.
The last point I would like to mention is Fanon’s relevance today. It is not to be found in the national character he praised, which does indeed have the meaning of liberation, and the contrast between this national character and a history that seems to have contradicted it. I believe that, on the contrary, when today we are bombarded with narrow forms of nationalist and nationalitarianism that would like to base states on ethnic foundations, or forms of communitarianism that are genuine regressions, we must affirm precisely that these are regressions. During the Kosovo war, an anthropologist friend said: “If we continue like this, that is, if we continue to identify a state with a nation and that nation with an ethnic group, then the UN will comprise 5,600 nations, 5,600 nation-states. And within certain countries, these nations, these ethnic groups, will devour each other, and it will be an unprecedented regression.”
We are in the midst of this regression, and that is why I believe that what Fanon says about national character, his criticism of reductive, aggressive, ethnicizing forms of identity, remains as powerful as ever. This leads us to rethink the much-debated question of violence. Contrary to what has been said, for Fanon, there is no such thing as violence by the colonized; the colonized, those engaged in a struggle for liberation, know only counter-violence, violence only as a response to the initial violence inflicted on them. The initial violence is that of imperialism. Our Palestinian friends show us this clearly. Fanon would have supported them. It is up to us to follow his example.
Notes
[1] Labica was appointed to the Lycée Bugeaud in Algiers in 1956, where he would teach philosophy. Fanon resigned from his post in Blida in December of the same year and left Algeria for Tunis, after a brief stopover in Paris, in January 1957. Their respective stays in Algeria overlapped for only a few months, but it should be noted that Blida is 27 miles from Algiers. It should also be noted that El Moudjahid was published in Tunis from November 1957 onwards, that it had two editions (French and Arabic) and that it was the work of a team working anonymously.
[2] Georges Labica, Le paradigme du Grand-Hornu. Essai sur l’idéologie, Paris, La Brèche, 1987, p. 105. Available at marxists.org. [Unless otherwise indicated, all citations have been translated from the respective originals in French regardless of existing English translations, whether such translations are referred to or not — Translator’s note.]
[3] In addition to the one we present on this occasion, we have identified two others (this list may not be exhaustive): “L’itinéraire de Frantz Fanon,” El Moudjahid, XII, 1962; “Sur Les damnés de la terre” (2007), available on marxists.org.
[4] For example, see the following articles and texts: “L’Egypte. Marxisme et spécificité,” La Pensée, no. 151, 1970, pp. 100-118; “Sur l’idéologie de l’Etat-nation,” Procès. Cahiers d’analyse politique et juridique, no. 19, pp. 21–30; “Vaincre la mondialisation,’’ in Stathis Kouvélakis (ed.), Y a-t-il une vie après le capitalisme ?, Pantin, Le temps des cerises, 2008; “Violence et mondialisation” (2008). These texts, along with many others, are available in the section dedicated to Georges Labica on marxists.org.
[5] Georges Labica, Théorie de la violence, Vrin-Città del Sole, Paris-Naples, 2007; reprinted, with a preface by Thierry Labica, by Delga, Paris, 2020. We will quote from the 2007 edition.
[6] Les damnés de la terre, in Frantz Fanon, Œuvres, Paris, La Découverte, 2011, p. 470. [See in English The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox, New York, Grove Press, 2004 — Translator’s note.]
[7] “Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war […] in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun,” Mao, “Problems of War and Strategy” (November 6, 1938), quoted in Théorie de la violence, p. 221. See English translation on https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_12.htm.
[8] Ibid.
[9] “And one might be tempted to repeat Fanon’s anathema denouncing ‘this new notion, which is strictly speaking a creation of the colonial situation: nonviolence […] an attempt to settle the colonial problem around a green carpet’,” or, following in his footsteps, Sartre’s: “The non-violent look good: neither victims nor executioners.” Ibid., p. 244.
[10] Théorie de la violence, pp. 249-250.
[11] On this issue, see Georges Labica, Démocratie et révolution, Pantin, Le temps des cerises, 2003 (available on marxists.org) and Stathis Kouvélakis, “Intervenir en marxiste. Sur le livre de Georges Labica : Démocratie et Révolution,” Contretemps, November 28, 2016.
[12] “No, I do not have the right to come and shout my hatred at the white man. I do not have the duty to whisper my gratitude to the white man. There is my life, caught in the lasso of existence. There is my freedom, which brings me back to myself. No, I do not have the right to be Black.” Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs, in Œuvres, p. 249. [See in English Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Richard Philcox, New York, Grove Press, 2008 — Translator’s note.] All footnotes to Labica’s intervention are by Stathis Kouvélakis.
[13] Ibid., p. 225.
[14] Alice Cherki, Frantz Fanon. Portrait, Paris, Seuil, 2014 (2000); Irène Gentzier, Frantz Fanon, Paris, Seuil, 1976.
[15] Albert Memmi, “La vie impossible de Frantz Fanon,” Esprit, no. 406, 1971, pp. 248-273.
[16] These writings have now been compiled by Jean Khalfa and Robert Young in the volume Frantz Fanon, Ecrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, Paris, La Découverte, 2015.
[17] “L’Algérie se dévoile” in L’An V de la révolution algérienne, in Œuvres, pp. 271–298.
[18] Les damnés de la terre, in Œuvres, pp. 485–486.
[19] “La famille algérienne ” in L’An V de la révolution algérienne, in Œuvres, p. 342.
[20] ” Fondements réciproques de la culture nationale et des luttes de libération,” Communication to the 2nd Congress of Black Writers and Artists, Rome, 1959, reprinted in Les damnés de la terre, in Œuvres, p. 622.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Felix-Roland Moumié (1925-1960) was a leading figure in the struggle for Cameroonian independence. Leader of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC), he was assassinated in November 1960 in Geneva by the French secret service.
[23] “Cette Afrique à venir,” reprinted in Pour la révolution africaine, in Œuvres, p. 862.
[24] Philippe Lucas, Sociologie de Frantz Fanon: contribution à une anthropologie de la libération, Algiers, S. N. E. D., 1971.
[25] “Lettre au Ministre Résident” (1956), reprinted in Pour la révolution africaine, in Œuvres, pp. 733-735.
[26] See also Jean Khalfa’s introduction to Part 3, “Political Writings,” of Ecrits sur l’aliénation et la liberté, p. 451.
Featured image: Frantz Fanon. Courtesy of Contretemps.
Translated from the original in French by Rolando Prats.
