The rebel's clinic

Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique, a French colony, in 1925. As a young man, he volunteered to fight in De Gaulle's army for the liberation of France, and trained to become a doctor and psychiatrist. His experiences as a black man under French colonial rule had a profound effect on him. In 1952, he wrote 'Black Skin, White Masks', a powerful analysis of the effects of racism on the human psyche. He was later reassigned to a hospital in French Algeria. It was here that he became involved in the rebellion of the National Liberation Front (FLN), who fought to break free from colonial power, and the draconian response of the French authorities, which included widespread mass killings and the systematic use of torture. Fanon's work for the FLN as a propagandist and psychiatrist became highly contentious. His final work, 'The Wretched of the Earth', was published in 1961 just before Fanon died at the age of 36.