Frantz Fanon, portrait

by Alice Cherki

L'itinéraire de Frantz Fanon, né antillais, mort algérien, et son témoignage de psychiatre, d'écrivain, de penseur politiquement engagé reviennent éclairer les désordres et les violences d'aujourd'hui. Fanon est mort à 36 ans, à un âge où souvent une vie d'homme ne fait que commencer. Mais toutes ses mises en garde aux pays colonisés en voie d'indépendance se sont révélées prophétiques. De même, ses réflexions sur la folie, le racisme, et sur un universalisme confisqué par les puissants, à peine audibles en son temps, ne cessent de nous atteindre et de nous concerner. L'auteur des Damnés de la terre a produit une œuvre «irrecevable». Son propre parcours ne l'était pas moins et la manière dont il s'interrogeait sur «la culture dite d'origine», sur le regard de l'autre et sur la honte n'a pas toujours été reconnue. Particulièrement qualifiée pour dresser ce portrait biographique et intellectuel, Alice Cherki a bien connu Frantz Fanon, travaillé à ses côtés, en Algérie et en Tunisie, dans son service psychiatrique, et partagé son engagement politique durant la guerre d'Algérie. Elle nous apporte son témoignage distancié sur un Fanon éveilleur de consciences, généreux sans concessions, habité par le sentiment tragique de la vie et par un espoir obstiné en l'Homme.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 6, 2006

Reviews

[Carolina Marchesin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma biografia não tão biografia, mais testemunho, desse homem incrível. A autora conheceu Fanon na Argélia, no hospital de Blida-Joinville, e foi sua amiga próxima até seus últimos dias. É um relato que só uma pessoa próxima poderia fazer, pra além das informações mais factuais.

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

leider hab ich das buch bei weitem nicht ganz verstanden, da ich den fehler gemacht hab, es auf französisch zu lesen. fand es trotzdem sehr gut, da es besonders auch einen einblick auf die entwicklungen in algerien gibt und wie diese fanons denken beeinflusst haben. außerdem wird viel über die reaktionen auf fanons schriften und denken gesprochen, sowohl zu seiner zeit als auch heute

[Stephen Cowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a number of books about Fanon, which followed on from reading his two main books “Black Skin, White Masks” and “The Wretched of the Earth”. To me he is a compelling and utterly original thinker for the way he puts together questions about politics and psychology. Many of the books written about him focus on him as a theorist and activist of the anti-colonial movement, treating his psychological practice as something of a side issue. To me this gets Fanon the wrong way round. Fanon is first and foremost a Psychologist, and it is seeing the psychological consequences of colonialism as a black man himself and as Psychologist, that he produces his most important insights. In this sense after reading Fanon’s main works, where I would advise anyone to go to next is this incredible book by Alice Chekri. Chekri is a fascinating figure in her own right and not nearly enough of her own work is published in English. But this book gives you Fanon as a person, and Fanon as thinker whose ideas were always developing and in motion. What Chekri shows is that Fanon was very much a Psychologist but he was never content to allow the scientific status of Psychology to stop him from asking the deeper questions. He saw the inherent limitations of Psychology without needing to throw the baby out with the bath water, as so many (including Foucault) have done. To get Psychology to think through the conditions of its existence as a discipline Fanon turned to Philosophy on one hand, but always tested theory against his life experience. He was a profoundly dialectical thinker. Alice Chekri has written a book which allows us to see all these dimensions of Fanon. She doesn’t idealise Fanon and in showing both his strengths and limitations she allows us to see how deeply relevant he is to the left, feminist and anti-racist project so needed now.