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The structure is a little lacking. The chapters are thematically consistent internally, but why any chapter was put where it was is unclear. There is no explicit overarching argument. The addressed audience is anticolonial revolutionaries and a big portion of the book is advice on the way from revolutionary struggle to nation-building. I found these parts boring and hard to get through, they don't really seem relevant anymore. The chapter On national culture is an exception, it is quite thought provoking and I will revisit it. The chapter about mental illness under colonialism is another exception. It is way more concrete and grounded than the other chapters. The case studies of patients are quite heavy to read and definitely left an impression on me.

I'm glad I read this book because it's a classic, but for the most part I'm also glad I'm done with it. Peau noire masques blancs was the better Fanon, unexpectedly.

I really like travel literature so that helped. I really enjoyed this little book. What I liked best was the description of how different regions in Germany feel different to wander through. What I liked least was the aside about PoC and LGBT people being "privileged minorities" or whatever. The selling point of the book is a little absurd on the face of it: "Only 6 % of Germany is covered with asphalt or concrete, yet we only hear the perspectives of the people from there. I went outside the beaten path to hear from the rest". Like obviously 94 % of the surface doesn't mean 94 % of the population. Almost 80 % of Germany's population live in cities. The people the author met on his journey are absolutely not representative of a silent majority or anything like that. Of course, that doesn't mean their stories aren't worth hearing (which is why the book is still very enjoyable); it does mean though, that you'll have a hard time extracting some larger political point from a few conversations you had (which is why every attempt at that throughout the book is annoying and betrays the author's biases). The book is good as a travelogue though. The prose is above decent, the politics are cringe, the structure and length are just right. Very enjoyable.

Fanon takes a lot from psychoanalysis in his description of the psychological effects of colonialism. He describes the subjectivity of the oppressed who are led to identify with their oppressor and are alienated from themselves. He replies to a lot of other texts, quotes a lot of black poets. He replies to Sartre, it made me want to read Sartre's "question juive". He also replies to some authors that are irrelevant nowadays, these parts are a little boring because he kinda assumes that the reader has read them. The parts about white women wanting to be raped, or about white racists being repressed homosexuals, sound pretty bad nowadays. All in all, he is at his most astute when describing the condition of the colonized (which, luckily, is most of the book). He gets a little weird and bad when psychoanalyzing the colonizers. Some passages are really well written and highly quotable.