Adam Shatz

The Rebel's Clinic, by Adam Shatz, is a detailed and nuanced look at both Frantz Fanon's life and ideas. The key element of this volume is the nuance, in order to understand what can, at first glance, appear to be contradictions or conflicts within his thought.

Like any thinker who is also heavily involved in real world struggles, there will be change and development in thought. That said, what can appear to be a contradiction can often be better understood as more consistent at the core but presented or manifested in different ways based on place, location, and purpose. Shatz brings these things into this critical biography, not to make everything Fanon said or wrote into an overly coherent whole but to let a reader understand the concepts at the foundation of the various expressions.

While I have read his major works and a few of his shorter pieces, including a couple of his psychiatric essays, I never had a firm grasp of any big picture in his thought. There is some advantage to that, though it isn't fair to him. Namely that it allowed me to apply my understanding of his ideas more easily to my own activism and thinking about the world. Gaining more insight from this book didn't disrupt my takeaways but it did highlight where I likely aligned more or less with his intentions.

Whether you're a reader of Fanon or new to him, I would highly recommend this book. If new to him, I don't think it makes a big difference whether you read this before, during, or after reading his major works. Ideas are presented here but that is no substitute for how Fanon expresses them (and Shatz doesn't intend them to be).

As a quick note to those I am in groups with, I had hoped to be able to present Judith Butler's new book to you in the near future but apparently my studying and teaching her works doesn't qualify me for a review copy, so I apologize for getting your hopes up and I will find something from another publisher to start some debates with. Happy reading and keep the ideas flowing.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (més)