Frantz Fanon (born July 20, 1925,Fort-de-France, Martinique—died December 6, 1961, Bethesda,Maryland, U.S.) was a West Indian psychoanalyst and social philosopher known for his theory that some neuroses are socially generated and for his writings on behalf of the national liberation of colonial peoples. Hiscritiques influenced subsequent generations of thinkers and activists.

After attending schools inMartinique, Fanon served in theFree French Army duringWorld War II and afterward attended school inFrance, completing his studies inmedicine andpsychiatry at the University of Lyon. In 1953–56 he served as head of the psychiatry department of Blida-Joinville Hospital inAlgeria, which was then part of France. While treating Algerians and French soldiers, Fanon began to observe the effects of colonial violence on the human psyche. He began working with the Algerian liberation movement, theNational Liberation Front (Front de Libération Nationale; FLN), and in 1956 became an editor of its newspaper,El Moudjahid, published inTunis. In 1960 he was appointed ambassador toGhana by Algeria’s FLN-led provisional government. That same year Fanon was diagnosed withleukemia. In 1961 he receivedtreatment for the disease in theUnited States, where he later died.

Fanon’sPeau noire, masques blancs (1952;Black Skin, White Masks) is a multidisciplinary analysis of the effect ofcolonialism on racialconsciousness.Integratingpsychoanalysis,phenomenology,existentialism, andNegritude theory, Fanonarticulated an expansive view of the psychosocialrepercussions of colonialism on colonized people. The publication shortly before his death of his bookLes Damnés de la terre (1961;The Wretched of the Earth) established Fanon as a leadingintellectual in the internationaldecolonization movement; the preface to his book was written byJean-Paul Sartre.

Fanon perceived colonialism as a form of domination whose necessary goal for success was the reordering of the world ofindigenous (“native”) peoples. He saw violence as the defining characteristic of colonialism. But if violence was a tool of social control, it may also, argued Fanon, be acathartic reaction to the oppression of colonialism and a necessary tool of political engagement. Fanon was naturally critical of the institutions of colonialism, but he also was an early critic of the postcolonial governments, which failed to achieve freedom from colonial influences and establish a national consciousness among the newly liberated populace. For Fanon the rise of corruption, ethnic division,racism, and economic dependence on former colonial states resulted from the “mediocrity” of Africa’s elite leadership class.

Fanon’s other writings includePour la révolution africaine: écrits politiques (1964;Toward the African Revolution: Political Essays) andL’An V de la Révolution Algérienne (1959; also published asA Dying Colonialism, 1965), collections of essays written during his time withEl Moudjahid.