Frantz Fanon: Gender, Torture and the Biopolitics of Colonialism

‘Few works have more creatively and comprehensively explored Fanon’s perspective on gender relations, the family, and women’s resistance to sexual violence ... Outstanding’ Peter Hudis, author of Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades

‘A meticulously researched analysis’ Jane Hiddleston, author of Frantz Fanon: Literature and Invention

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was a visionary thinker whose legacy continues to shape conversations on identity, power and resistance. Here, leading Fanon scholar Azzedine Haddour explores themes of gender, revolutionary struggle and decolonisation in the first comprehensive study of Fanon’s lesser-known work, Studies in a Dying Colonialism (1959).

Drawing on archival material, the author explores the historical developments that determined the colonial consensus and the social transformation prompted by the Algerian liberation struggle. Haddour engages with the biopolitics of French colonialism to support Fanon’s claim that the medical establishment acted in complicity with colonialism. He recounts various assimilationist laws that resulted in the gendering of colonial space and shows how the wars alter the perception of the colonised population through modern Western technologies like the radio.

In an era where global struggles for independence and self-determination persist, this book is a fascinating new journey into the mind of a groundbreaking philosopher and icon of revolution.

Azzedine Haddour is Professor in Francophone and Comparative Literature at University College London. He is the author of Frantz Fanon, Postcolonialism and the Ethics of Difference and Colonial Myths: History and Narrative, editor of The Fanon Reader, and translator of a collection of Sartre’s essays, Colonialism and Neocolonialism.