LAUSR

A small spate of books on the Martinican thinker Frantz Fanon has appeared recently. Along with the book reviewed here, Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades by Peter Hudis (PlutoPress, 2015) and Leo Zeilig’s Frantz Fanon: The Militant Philosopher of Third World Revolution (I.B. Tauris, 2016) testify to the compelling force of Fanon’s writings and their enduring relevance to issues which continue to bedevil the world. Christopher J. Lee proposes a new expression, “radical empathy” (14, 193), to summarize his vision of Fanon’s major contribution to political thought and ethical social practice. The six chapters of Lee’s book are a model of succinct elucidation that could serve equally as an introduction to Fanon’s complex ideas or as an effective historical-biographical contextualization for those already familiar with his central texts. The chapter titles (“Martinique”, “France”, “Black Skin, White Masks”, “Algeria”, “Tunisia” and “The Wretched of the Earth”) are indicative of Lee’s scope. Toward the end of his study Lee states: