The Life & Works of Frantz Fanon
January 25, 2024
by Adam Shatz
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024
Named a most anticipated book of 2024 by Foreign Policy | Lit Hub | The Millions
"Nimble and engrossing. . . [An] exemplary work of public intellectualism." ―Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
A revelatory biography of the writer-activist who inspired today’s movements for social and racial justice
In
the era of Black Lives Matter, Frantz Fanon’s shadow looms larger than
ever. He was the intellectual activist of the postcolonial era, and his
writings about race, revolution, and the psychology of power continue to
shape radical movements across the world. In this searching biography,
Adam Shatz tells the story of Fanon’s stunning journey, which has all
the twists of a Cold War-era thriller. Fanon left his modest home in
Martinique to fight in the French Army during World War II; when the war
was over, he fell under the influence of Existentialism while studying
medicine in Lyon and trying to make sense of his experiences as a Black
man in a white city. Fanon went on to practice a novel psychiatry of
“dis-alienation” in rural France and Algeria, and then join the Algerian
independence struggle, where he became a spokesman, diplomat, and
clandestine strategist. He died in 1961, while under the care of the CIA
in a Maryland hospital. Today, Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks and The
Wretched of the Earth have become canonical texts of the Black and
global radical imagination, comparable to James Baldwin’s essays in
their influence. And yet they are little understood. In The Rebel’s
Clinic, Shatz offers a dramatic reconstruction of Fanon’s extraordinary
life―and a guide to the books that underlie today’s most vital efforts
to challenge white supremacy and racial capitalism.
Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs
REVIEWS:
"[A]
nimble and engrossing new book . . . As Shatz shows in this exemplary
work of public intellectualism, in which he does not sugarcoat or
simplify, [Fanon] was every bit as much a victim of empire as the
patients he worked to heal." ―Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
"Absorbing
. . . Shatz [. . .] is a mostly steady hand in turbulent waters. His
chosen title highlights a side of Fanon that often gets eclipsed by the
larger-than-life image of the zealous partisan ― that of the caring
doctor . . . What gives “The Rebel’s Clinic” its intellectual heft is
Shatz’s willingness to write into such tensions." ―Jennifer Szalai, The
New York Times Book Review
“Excellent
and thought-provoking . . . All too timely . . . The Rebel’s Clinic
should be read by anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the
intellectual origins of today’s ‘decolonial left,’ whether they
sympathize with it or not.” ―Adam Kirsch, Air Mail
"[An]
insightful biography . . . Shatz is a sober and informed guide [to
Fanon]. He is an erudite writer, [and] his frequent detours into the
intellectual currents that surrounded Fanon―from existentialism and the
francophone black consciousness movement Négritude to Algerians’ varying
attitudes to FLN tactics―are useful." ―Daniel Trilling, Financial Times
"[A]
perceptive biography . . . Elucidating the ideas and figures that
animated Fanon’s thinking, [. . .] the nuanced narrative skillfully
illuminates how the disparate threads of Fanon’s life fit together . . .
Shatz also provides discerning commentary on Fanon’s two masterworks . .
. A striking appraisal of a towering thinker." ―Publishers Weekly
"[A]
thoroughly researched biography . . . The Rebel’s Clinic is a deep
meditation on the transformative power and influence of one radical
philosophical writer on the continuing fight for justice on many
fronts." ―Booklist (starred review)
"The
Rebel's Clinic is a diligent, scrupulous, serious book. Adam Shatz
keeps Fanon alive as one of us―a human being―not simply the
larger-than-life subject of an academic study. This book offers a
careful reconstruction of Fanon's times, especially the war in Algeria,
and resonates at a moment when we are tragically no closer to solving
the problems Fanon dedicated his life and writing to understanding."
―John Edgar Wideman, author of Fanon and Look for Me and I'll Be Gone
"Frantz
Fanon has found his Isaac Deutscher in Adam Shatz. Politically and
psychologically suave, The Rebel’s Clinic is as illuminating on the
tragic pattern of Fanon’s private life as on the tumultuous continents
through which he moved. It is also continuously insightful about Fanon's
tormentingly complicated intellectual bequest on the crucial subjects
of race and empire." ―Pankaj Mishra, author of Run and Hide and From the
Ruins of Empire
"Adam Shatz offers a richly detailed account of
the life and thought of Frantz Fanon. It is at once an intimate and
unsparing portrait of the complexities of Fanon’s life as psychiatrist
and militant political activist, and a vivid depiction of the
anti-colonial struggles in which he engaged. We get a close look at
internal conflicts among revolutionaries, as Fanon makes his way from
Martinique to Algeria to sub-Saharan Africa. Shatz’s masterful command
of the history of that moment of promise in the early 1960s is
compelling, indeed gripping reading. This is a book that gives deep
insight not only into the life and times of Fanon, but also into the
ways in which the history he lived was made." ―Joan W. Scott, professor
emerita at the Institute for Advanced Study
"The Rebel's Clinic
is a triumph, a sweeping work of intellectual history that is also an
intimate biography of a remarkable thinker and historical figure. It is
beautifully written, deftly constructed, rigorous and illuminating. This
is a book that will last and be read for many years." ―Eyal Press,
author of Dirty Work
"The Rebel’s Clinic is a fabulous book.
Frantz Fanon’s life as portrayed by Adam Shatz is a breathtaking love
and jealousy ridden encounter with philosophy, politics, and literature,
taking place in the last days of European empires." ―Ivan Krastev,
author of Is It Tomorrow Yet? and co-author of The Light that Failed
"Adam
Shatz has captured Fanon's evolution as a thinker by linking this
proud, fastidious man's interiority to a complex network of contexts:
family, war, art, psychiatry, existentialism, black America, left-wing
Catholicism and, most of all, African poetics. The result is the most
subtle, comprehensive and lucid study yet to appear in English.Shatz has
the gift of explanation without simplification." ―Declan Kiberd, author
of Inventing Ireland
"More than a biography, Adam Shatz’s The
Rebel’s Clinic is a rich and textured portrait of the intellectual and
political worlds that shaped Frantz Fanon’s life, ideas, and legacies.
Readers who know Fanon’s work intimately as well as those just
discovering this iconic figure of Third World revolution will learn from
this book." ―Adom Getachew, author of Worldmaking after Empire: The
Rise and Fall of Self-Determination
"Adam Shatz sweeps us up in
Frantz Fanon's life-as-road movie, with a cast of characters and an
array of settings that come alive on the page, from Sartre and Beauvoir
in Copacabana to Patrice Lumumba in the suburbs of Léopoldville. At the
same time, with his unequaled mastery of geopolitics and world-spanning
ideas, he has given us an intellectual history of a century of
revolutionary aspirations. The Rebel's Clinic is a what is to be done
for our times." ―Alice Kaplan, author of The Collaborator and Looking
for The Stranger
"The Rebel's Clinic is a fascinating and
enlightening read, one that will speak to many and that will help
correct misconceptions about Fanon. This book not only provides a full
picture of its subject; it also inspires the reader to apply Fanon's
insights to situations that transcend his life and times. Adam Shatz has
written an important book that speaks to our troubled and confusing
moment." ―Raja Shehadeh, Orwell Prize–winning author of We Could Have
Been Friends, My Father and I
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Adam Shatz is the US editor of the London Review of Books and a contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and other publications. He is the author of Writers and Missionaries: Essays on the Radical Imagination and the host of the podcast Myself with Others. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
