THE LAST DAY OF FRANTZ FANON followed by an interview with his wife, Josie Fanon

The Last Day of Frantz Fanon

by Christian Filostrat

A One-Act Narrative Followed by an interview with Josie Fanon, his wife  

The Last Day of Frantz Fanon  in book form is also at amazon.com likewise in French.

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After six years of revolutionary activities in Africa, Frantz Fanon arrived in New York in early October 1961, suffering from an advanced case of leukemia. Admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital, he died on December 6th. He was 36 years old.

Born in Martinique in 1925, Fanon was a product of the French colonial system. In 1943, he joined the free French forces to help defend "liberal France" against the racist Vichy French sailors stationed in Martinique during the war – those "sailors who had forced [him] to defend and thus discover [his] color."

The experience in the French army further sharpened his awareness of a world where division and racism were the rule. That and a keen, sensitive mind made him the most lucid observer of the realities inherent to colonialism. He is colonialism's foremost forensic analyst.

Until the Algerian Revolution, Fanon adhered to the principles of négritude espoused by Aimé Césaire, his lycée teacher. Black Skin, White Mask is a négritude testimonial in which Fanon acknowledges blackness albeit from the point of view of his French colonial upbringing and Césaire's adaptation as to the place of peoples of African descent in the French empire.

While giving him unparalleled insight into and appreciation for national liberations and struggles found in his writing, his uncompromising efforts on behalf of the Algerian Revolution shortened his life. Today, we speak of a Fanon legacy.

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December 5, 1961, Dr. Frantz Fanon, a.k.a., Ibrahim Fanon, psychiatrist from Martinique, Algerian revolutionary, author of The Wretched of the Earth, is lying in a hospital bed in room 37 of the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He first went to Moscow for treatment but was told that NIH was the preeminent facility for his type of cancer. He's thirty-six years old. The day of his death on December 6, he's reflecting on what his revolutionary activities have taught him.

My time is up; the count is inexorable.

Defiant, I make the most of the awareness that I'm near death, by occupying my mind with what I believe. Delirium helps. It obliges me to examine my hallucinations; and in trying to recollect what I may have muttered, my life passes in front of me in spurts.

Since October, hopes, despair, fatigue, all are intertwined with the count. In the case of the fever, it's hide and seek with the chill, and I'm reminded of home, of my childhood in Martinique before the war. We were obsessed with the game of hide and seek especially at nightfall. Playing outlaw (coups de bandits) was another pursuit. The adults watched us from their doorways and whispered hiding places to us. René usually got most of the whispers. He spoke French with a Negro de Paris accent, proof he had been to France. The adults favored him for that. We thought nothing of it. In fact, we assumed it appropriate given that he had been to France.

Presently, fever and chill, like two powerful kingdoms have forged a treaty – fever night, chill day. I have no say in the matter. As I told my wife, Josie, in Tunisia at the onset of my night chills, this thing is taking its course without any input from me. What I assume is stress, inspires the fever to burn with more zeal at nightfall.