Irene L. Gendzier
Last Updated on June 7, 2022, by eNotes Editorial. Word Count: 159
[David Caute's Frantz Fanon] succeeds in providing the interested reader with a rapid account of the life and times of the Martiniquean psychiatrist turned revolutionary in the Algerian Revolution of 1954–1962…. [But] Caute fails to capture the passion and the tragedy that marked Fanon's life…. Fanon's complex combination of anti-western, anti-colonialist attitudes was expressed in the language and historical context of the country towards which he felt such strong and ambivalent sentiments. He formulated but did not resolve that contradiction which is common to other partisans in the same struggle. To Caute, who is an astute follower of the man's political wanderings, it is equally compelling to contemplate the fact that Fanon's following has been largely outside of Africa, in North America and in the Middle East. Events and their interpreters, however, change at uneven schedules. (p. 118)
Irene L. Gendzier, in a review of "Frantz Fanon," in The Middle East Journal (© 1971, the Middle East Institute), Vol. 25, No. 1, Winter, 1971, pp. 117-18.
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