Books: The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

Finished reading the Swedish translations of The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon this week (Monday and today, respectively).

From the cover of Black Skin, White Masks:

First published in English in 1968, Frantz Fanon's seminal text was immediately acclaimed as a classic of black liberationalist writing. Fanon's descriptions of the feelings of inadequacy and dependence experienced by people of colour in a white world - the crippled colonial mentalities of the oppressed - are as salient and as compelling as ever.

Fanon identifies a devastating pathology at the heart of Western culture, a denial of difference, that persists to this day. His writings speak to all who continue the struggle for political and cultural liberation in our troubled times.

From Eugene Holley, Jr.'s review of The Wretched of the Earth:

Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was a Martinique-born black psychiatrist and anticolonialist intellectual; The Wretched of the Earth is considered by many to be one of the canonical books on the worldwide black liberation struggles of the 1960s. Within a Marxist framework, using a cutting and nonsentimental writing style, Fanon draws upon his horrific experiences working in Algeria during its war of independence against France. He addresses the role of violence in decolonization and the challenges of political organization and the class collisions and questions of cultural hegemony in the creation and maintenance of a new country's national consciousness. As Fanon eloquently writes, "[T]he unpreparedness of the educated classes, the lack of practical links between them and the mass of the people, their laziness, and, let it be said, their cowardice at the decisive moment of the struggle will give rise to tragic mishaps."

Although socialism has seemingly collapsed in the years since Fanon's work was first published, there is much in his look into the political, racial, and social psyche of the ever-emerging Third World that still rings true at the cusp of a new century.

I was recommended to read Fanon, specifically The Wretched of the Earth by my friend Guzman as I had mentioned having an interest in colonialism. I picked up Black Skin, White Masks on a whim since it was also available at the library.

I found the latter to be the most intriguing one, describing how many Martiniquans see themselves as being better than people from Africa, as they believe themselves to be more white. How words like negro and being black has a negative connotation and how some women would never consider being married to someone who isn't white, or at least whiter than themselves.

While I'd like to act all pretentious and say I've fully understood and absorbed the contents of these books, that'd be a pack of lies. Some of it went right above my head (albeit in some cases that was due to a lack of context). In general I'm woefully uneducated on the whole matter of colonialism. Perhaps a primer is in order before I continue reading books on this subject. Any suggestions?