The Wretched of the Earth

Written during the Algerian war of independence and published shortly before Fanon's death, with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre. The first chapter, 'On Violence', argues that colonialism is a system founded on violence that divides the world into two compartments, and that decolonisation is necessarily a violent upheaval that remakes the colonised as people. Later chapters examine the strengths and weaknesses of spontaneous uprisings, and warn against the 'pitfalls of national consciousness', in which a new national middle class simply takes the coloniser's place. A chapter on national culture discusses the role of intellectuals and artists. The book closes with psychiatric case studies from the war, drawn from Fanon's clinical work, and a call to create a new humanity rather than imitate Europe.

It remains the classic analysis of colonial domination and its aftermath, and its warnings about post-independence elites have proved strikingly accurate.