Our book group is open to all. Attend every meeting, occasionally or just once in your life. All we ask is that you read the book in advance and take part in the discussion. There’s a short introduction by a member of staff, a group regular, or someone we know with a special interest in the book in question.

This quarter, the non-fiction group will be discussing Frantz Fanon’s seminal work on the trauma of colonisation: The Wretched of the Earth.

The edition we have for sale is translated from the French by Constance Farrington, with an introduction by Jean-Paul Sartre; however, you do not have to read this edition for the discussion.

Written at the height of the Algerian war for independence from French colonial rule and first published in 1961, Frantz Fanon’s classic text has provided inspiration for anti-colonial movements ever since, analysing the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for freedom. With power and anger, Fanon makes clear the economic and psychological degradation inflicted by imperialism. It was Fanon, himself a psychotherapist, who exposed the connection between colonial war and mental disease, who showed how the fight for freedom must be combined with building a national culture, and who showed the way ahead, through revolutionary violence, to socialism.

You do not need to be an expert of any kind to attend this group! We parse and discuss the text together with the hope of building a better understanding collectively.

Refreshments provided.

Our book groups – Fiction and Irish book groups (monthly), Pagan (bi-monthly), Non-Fiction (quarterly)