Fanon’s Nordic Adventure: A Brief Study of Translations and Reception

Abstract

Fanon seems to have played an exceptional role in Scandinavia, and especially in Sweden. Last year’s appearance of Goran Olsson’s documentary film Concerning Violence. Nine Scenes from the Anti-Imperialistic Self Defense , based on the first chapter of Les Damnes de la terre and narrated by Lauryn Hill, only goes to show that he is still highly relevant. When working toward the completion of this special issue on Frantz Fanon in a Caribbean context, I came to reflect upon his position in the North wondering if it would be possible to map Fanon’s presence in Sweden, and from this mapping, understand why Fanon has been a prevailing reference for academics, intellectuals and artists. Studying Fanon’s presence involves various subjects and disciplines since it raises questions of how the Left has evolved, of how certain concepts are transposed from one language and context to another reality in another language depending on factors such as who introduced Fanon, through which channels and to what purpose. What follows here is an essayistic pilot-study, more based on conversations and observations than on theory and methodology. Hopefully, it will offer the reader a basic outline and a description of a phenomenon in what we can call a “peripherical translation zone” that may, even though it is incomplete, contribute to decentering translation studies, and allow us to estimate the tremendous impact of Fanon in this region, an impact that, as we shall soon see, has far more ramifications than one would tend to believe.