Frantz Fanon

1925 (Fort-de-France, Martinique) – 1961 (Bethesda, Md.)

Césaire taught him at school, became his mentor and a powerful influence on his life. Glissant, also from Martinique, was befriended as a student — he described Fanon as extremely sensitive. Sartre and de Beauvoir were friends of Fanon’s; Sartre wrote the preface for ‘The Wretched of the Earth’, while Fanon told de Beauvoir that an Algerian comrade’s death haunted his conscience. He greatly admired Wright, wrote to him, annd met him at the first conference in France on black art and literature. Lanzmann, who met Fanon in North Africa, planned a book about him after his death that came to naught.