Writings on alienation and freedom, by Frantz Fanon, Texts collected, introduced and presented by Jean Khalfa and Robert Young
The work of Frantz Fanon, psychiatrist and anti-colonialist activist who died prematurely in 1961 at the age of thirty-six, has since marked generations of anti-colonialists, civil rights activists and specialists in postcolonial studies. Since the publication of his books (Black Skin, White Masks, 1952; Year V of the Algerian Revolution, 1959; The Wretched of the Earth, 1961), we knew that many of his writings remained unpublished or inaccessible. In particular his psychiatric writings, including those devoted to “colonialist alienation seen through mental illness” (in the words of his editor François Maspero).
This material constitutes the heart of the present volume, established and presented following a patient work of collection and a long research by Jean Khalfa and Robert JC Young. The reader will find there the scientific articles published by Fanon, his thesis of psychiatry, as well as certain unpublished and texts published in the internal newspaper of the hospital of Blida-Joinville where he practiced from 1953 to 1956. One will also find there two plays written during his medical studies (L'Œil se noie and Les Mains paralleles), the correspondence that has been found as well as certain texts published in El Moudjahid after 1958, not included in Pour la Révolution africaine (1964). This remarkable collection is completed by the correspondence that François Maspero and the writer Giovanni Pirelli had exchanged for a project to publish the complete works of Fanon, as well as by the reasoned analysis of the latter's library.
The publication of these Écrits sur l'alienation et la liberté constitutes a real editorial event, by the new look they allow to take on the thought of Fanon as much as by their still current scope, in the psychiatric field as in the political field.
About the author: Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) born in the West Indies, died in Algeria at the age of 36, psychiatrist, FLN militant, he is notably the author of Black Skin, White Masks, Sociology of a Revolution (L'an V de la Algerian Revolution) and The Damned of the Earth.
Table of content
General introduction, by Jean Khalfa and Robert JC Young
I / Theater
Introduction, by Robert JC Young
The eye drowns
Parallel Hands
II / Psychiatric writings
Fanon, revolutionary psychiatrist, by Jean Khalfa
Mental alterations, character modifications, psychic disorders and intellectual deficit in spinocerebellar heredo-degeneration. About a case of Friedreich's disease with delirium of possession
Letter to Maurice Despinoy
Hyphen
On some cases treated by Bini's method
Indications for Bini's therapy in the context of institutional therapies
On a trial of rehabilitation in a patient with morpheic epilepsy and severe character disorders
Note on sleep cure techniques with conditioning and electroencephalographic control
Our diary, introduction by Amina Azza Bekka
Letter to Maurice Despinoy
Social therapy in a service for Muslim men: methodological difficulties
Daily life in the douars
Introduction to Sexual Disorders in North Africans
Current aspects of mental assistance in Algeria
Ethnopsychiatric considerations
Conduct of confession in North Africa (1)
Conduct of confession in North Africa (2)
Letter to Maurice Despinoy
Attitude of the Maghreb Muslim to madness
The TAT in Muslim women, sociology of perception and imagination
Letter to Resident Minister
The phenomenon of agitation in a psychiatric setting: general considerations, psychopathological significance
Biological study of the action of lithium citrate in manic attacks
About a case of torsion spasm
First trials of injectable meprobamate in hypochondriac states
Day hospitalization in psychiatry, value and limits
Day hospitalization in psychiatry, value and limits. Second part: doctrinal considerations
Meeting of society and psychiatry, presentation and notes by Lilia Ben Salem
III / Political writings
Introduction, by Jean Khalfa
The demoralized Foreign Legion
The independence of Algeria, an everyday reality
National independence, the only possible outcome
Algeria and the French crisis
The Algerian conflict and African anti-colonialism
A democratic revolution
Again, why the prerequisite
The Algerian Revolutionary Consciousness
Strategy of a beleaguered army
The survivors of no man's land
The testament of a "leftist"
Logic of ultracolonialism
The Western World and the Fascist Experience in France
Gaullist illusions
The calvary of a people
The rise of the anti-imperialist movement and the pacification retards
The solidarity fight of African countries
Listen white man! by Richard Wright
In Conakry, he declares: "World peace passes through national independence"
Africa blames the West
The lackeys of imperialism
Letter to Ali Shariati, presentation by Sara Shariati and translation by Ehsan Shariati
IV / Publish Fanon (France and Italy, 1959-1971)
Introduction, by Jean Khalfa
Correspondence from François Maspero and Frantz Fanon
The Italian Fanon: Uncovering a Buried Editorial History, by Neelam Srivastava
V / Frantz Fanon's library
List drawn up, presented and commented on by Jean Khalfa
Chronological landmarks
Index.