Frantz Fanon’s Reception in Brazil*

Abstract

How was Fanon received among intellectuals and what was his influence on the formation of black identities in Brazil? His work took time being noticed, because of the particularities of the Latin-American left of the 1960s, because of a racial and national system totally opposed to racial conflicts and because of the limited number of black researchers addressing the subject of the formation of the black identity or the assertion of the rights of the racially oppressed. It was Sartre’s preface to his book “The Wretched of the Earth” that circulated widely among non-blacks, rather than the books themselves. Fanon remained a black revolutionary wearing the white masks imposed on him by European universalist culture.There have been three decisive moments in Fanon’s reception in Brazil. The first was in the 1960s amid the riots of the Black Panthers. The second was his reception by Abdias do Nascimento and young black students and professionals in the 1970s. The third is going on today through postcolonial and subaltern studies.