Decolonizing the Mind: Fanon, Achebe and Ngũgĩ

Writers and thinkers argued that decolonization had to change minds and cultures as well as flags. In the 1930s the Négritude movement of Aimé Césaire and Léopold Senghor celebrated Black and African cultures against colonial claims of inferiority. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who joined the Algerian independence struggle, analyzed the psychological effects of colonialism in 'Black Skin, White Masks' (1952) and 'The Wretched of the Earth' (1961), which also warned that new elites might simply replace the colonizers.

Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart' (1958) told the story of colonization from an Igbo perspective, challenging European portrayals of Africa. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o went further: in 'Decolonising the Mind' (1986) he argued that African writers should write in African languages, and he switched from English to Gikuyu. Achebe, by contrast, defended using English, adapted to African experience. Their debate shows that decolonization raised lasting questions about language, identity and who tells history.