Frantz Fanon went to Algeria in 1954 as an employee of the French state, but when the F.L.N. launched its armed revolt, later that year, Fanon joined immediately.

The Question of Violence

Hamas’s October 7 attack has made a new biography of Frantz Fanon, the formidable and incendiary theorist of decolonization, all too timely

By Adam Kirsch

The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon by Adam Shatz

When Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing some 1,300 people, one Cornell professor declared that he found the attack “energizing” and “exhilarating.”

This was not an isolated reaction. The massacre was celebrated by parts of the left on college campuses and social media, revealing a sea change in American attitudes toward Israel and Palestine, especially among young people. To understand it, many observers turned to a writer who died more than 60 years ago: Frantz Fanon.