Samia Zennadi: fanon de retour

Samia Zennadi, who participates in Naeem Mohaiemen’s Two Meetings and a Funeral, speaks in French about her work on Frantz Fanon. Live translation in Arabic is provided.

Frantz Fanon’s writings, actions, and personality have had a profound influence on generations of individuals throughout the world in the sixties and seventies. It has helped them rethink their situations and identify the problems with which they have been confronted as individuals and groups subjected to dominations of various orders. Many have claimed his thought, interpreting it and adapting it to their respective contexts. Militants for national independence, class emancipation, and individual emancipation, as well as thinkers, psychologists, psychiatrists, artists, and writers have found in Fanon a reference for their actions and thoughts.

Coming from a background in archaeology and author of a book on the art of tapestry in Algeria, Samia Zennadi lives in Algiers. She is the director of Alliance Internationale des Éditeurs Indépendants (APIC), a publishing house that she co-founded with her partner Karim Chikh. Committee member of the Festival international de la littérature et du livre jeunesse d’alger (The Algiers International Festival for Literature and Youth) from 2008 to 2010, she is also responsible for L’espace panaf (Pan-African Space) at 15eme salon international du livre d’alger (The 15th Algiers International Book Salon) where she initiated the literary review titled L’Afrique parle livres (Africa Speaks Books). She organized in Algiers three writing residencies: Ancrage africain (July 2009), Esprit Frantz Fanon (July 2012, publication 2015) and Le sud, quelles alternatives? (September 2013). She is also a member of the Rentrée littéraire du mali (Literary Re-entry of Mali).