The Rebel's Clinic

Adam Shatz goes beyond crass simplifications of both Fanon and his legacy and gives us back the man in full: political radical, expansive humanist, philosophical existentialist, practising psychiatrist, freedom fighter, father, husband, son. Fanon did more with his 36 years than most of us could manage in three lifetimes. An extraordinary book about an extraordinary man. * Zadie Smith *
Insightful ... Shatz is a sober and informed guide ... He is an erudite writer, and not afraid to show off his erudition -- Daniel Trilling * Financial Times *
A masterly new biography of Fanon -- Edo Konrad * The Guardian *
Vividly written, though unabashedly erudite -- Michaela Wrong * The Spectator *
Absorbing * New York Times *
Nimble and engrossing * Washington Post *
Riveting * Los Angeles Times *
Shatz’s book distinguishes itself by connecting Fanon’s thought to the livewire debates facing us in 2024 ... Shatz’s satisfying biography ... offers a portrait of Fanon that is not hagiographic, but rather of a great man who was deeply flawed -- Tomiwa Owolade * New Statesman *
[A] careful portrait of the anti-racist project that was Fanon’s life, both as a psychiatrist and as a person -- Samuel Reilly * ArtReview *
Excellent and thought-provoking ... should be read by anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the intellectual origins of today's "decolonial left", whether they sympathize with it or not * Air Mail *
Wonderful ... Shatz writes convincingly and movingly -- Megan Vaughan * Literary Review *
The Rebel's Clinic is a diligent, scrupulous, serious book. Adam Shatz keeps Fanon alive as one of us—a human being—not simply the larger-than-life subject of an academic study. This book offers a careful reconstruction of Fanon's times, especially the war in Algeria, and resonates at a moment when we are tragically no closer to solving the problems Fanon dedicated his life and writing to understanding. * John Edgar Wideman, author of Fanon and Look for Me and I'll Be Gone *
Frantz Fanon has found his Isaac Deutscher in Adam Shatz. Politically and psychologically suave, The Rebel’s Clinic is as illuminating on the tragic pattern of Fanon’s private life as on the tumultuous continents through which he moved. It is also continuously insightful about Fanon's tormentingly complicated intellectual bequest on the crucial subjects of race and empire. * Pankaj Mishra, author of Run and Hide and From the Ruins of Empire *
Fanon positioned his life on the frontlines of decolonization, determined to imagine how the world was to be decolonized and what it would look like. Shatz offers a brilliant reconstruction of Fanon’s journeying from Martinique to Algeria. He tells a riveting story, his prose a thing of beauty. In his telling Fanon ceases to be a disembodied icon and becomes properly historical. Shatz’s Fanon upholds the certainty of the militant while he ponders, at the same time, the meanings of the unconscious world. His nuanced and complex readings of Fanon’s conception of political violence are a tour de force. Fanon was the most audacious interpreter of the age of decolonization: Shatz recovers him for our times. * Bill Schwarz, author of The White Man’s World: Memories of Empire *
The Rebel’s Clinic is a fabulous book. Franz Fanon’s life as portrayed by Adam Shatz is a breath-taking love and jealousy ridden encounter of philosophy, politics and literature, taking place in the last days of European empires. * Ivan Krastev *
Adam Shatz has captured Fanon's evolution as a thinker by linking this proud, fastidious man's interiority to a complex network of contexts: family, war, art, psychiatry, existentialism, black America, left-wing Catholicism and, most of all, African poetics. The result is the most subtle, comprehensive and lucid study yet to appear in English.Shatz has the gift of explanation without simplification. * Declan Kiberd *
Adam Shatz offers a richly detailed account of the life and thought of Frantz Fanon. It is at once an intimate and unsparing portrait of the complexities of Fanon’s life as psychiatrist and militant political activist, and a vivid depiction of the anti-colonial struggles in which he engaged. We get a close look at internal conflicts among revolutionaries, as Fanon makes his way from Martinique to Algeria to Africa. Shatz’s masterful command of the history of that moment of promise in the early 1960s is compelling, indeed gripping reading. This is a book that gives deep insight not only into the life and times of Fanon, but also into the ways in which the history he lived was made. * Joan W. Scott, professor emerita at the Institute for Advanced Study *
More than a biography, Adam Shatz’s The Rebel’s Clinic is a rich and textured portrait of the intellectual and political worlds that shaped Frantz Fanon’s life, ideas, and legacies. Readers who know Fanon’s work intimately as well as those just discovering this iconic figure of Third World revolution will learn from this book. * Adom Getachew, author of Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination *
Adam Shatz sweeps us up in Franz Fanon's life-as-road movie, with a cast of characters and an array of settings that come alive on the page, from Sartre and Beauvoir in Copacabana to Patrice Lumumba in the suburbs of Léopoldville. At the same time, with his mastery of geopolitics and world-spanning ideas, he has given us an intellectual history of a century of revolutionary aspirations. The Rebel's Clinic is a what is to be done for our times. * Alice Kaplan, author of The Collaborator and Looking for The Stranger *
The Rebel's Clinic is a fascinating and enlightening read, one that will speak to many and that will help correct misconceptions about Fanon. This book not only provides a full picture of its subject; it also inspires the reader to apply Fanon's insights to situations that transcend his life and times. Adam Shatz has written an important book that speaks to our troubled and confusing moment. * Raja Shehadeh, Orwell Prize–winning author of We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I *
Shatz does Fanon superb justice, alive to his complexities and blindspots but also to what made him such an original and clarifying thinker. It's also striking how many great minds were in and around Algeria: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jacques Derrida, Albert Memmi. * Sameer Rahim *
Thoroughly researched ... a deep meditation on the transformative power and influence of one radical philosophical writer on the continuing fight for justice on many fronts * Booklist *