The Wretched of the Earth (1961) follows Fanon's first book, Black Skin, White Masks (1952), and marks the author's shift from anti-racism and the Black experience toward a more broadly anti-colonialist perspective. Although the text is concerned primarily with the events of the Algerian War, Fanon's philosophy applies not just to Africans or Muslims, but rather to the globally oppressed. The book, while long, complex, and intellectually well-argued, is anything but dry and academic. It is written in an energized, passionate style that some sources say is the result of his habit of dictating his work as speeches to his wife.
The book contains a well-known Foreword by Jean-Paul Sartre,...