Fanon's Typewriter

This essay examines the central role of the typewriter in materializing Frantz Fanon's entire body of writing. Indeed, two typists—Josie Fanon and Marie-Jeanne Manuellan—painstakingly took dictation from Fanon to give his thoughts a physical shape. Examining accounts both fictional and non-fictional, I argue that the typewriter-woman is the medium of Fanon's revolutionary thought: she not only performs the reproductive labor of writing, but also actively shapes and constrains what Fanon said, thus contributing her voice to his famous works. By the same token, I insist on moving away from Fanon's words to those of his typist. Analyzing Manuellan's memoir as well as Josie Fanon's extraordinary career as an Algerian journalist, this article re-assesses the feminist stakes of reading Fanon. In particular, Josie Fanon's decolonial feminism provides a new way to contend with, if not repair, the violent misogyny associated with the "Fanon" name.