‘A bird yearning for freedom’: Algerian critiques of Fanon after 1962

SUMMARY This briefing revisits Algerian debates on the writings of Frantz Fanon in the years following independence. It focuses on how leftists responded to Fanon’s theory of the peasantry and his depiction of the role of syndicalism and communist organisations in the history of Algerian nationalism. The critiques made by these fellow travellers, who shared Fanon’s revolutionary commitments, elucidate how Fanon’s writings became a touchstone for Trotskyists and communists who opposed aspects of Algerian policy under Ahmed Ben Bella. Despite Fanon’s untimely death in 1961, discussions of his work continued to be fundamental for the intellectual history of revolutionary thought in Algeria after independence.