Frantz Fanon (1925-61) was born in the French Caribbean island of Martinique. He studied medicine and psychiatry in France and worked in a hospital in Algeria between 1953 and 1956. He passionately identified with Algeria's armed struggle for independence and this led him to write The Wretched of the Earth (1961) which became a manifesto for the Third World. Black Skin, White Masks was first published in France in 1952.