Josie Fanon - Remembered by Assia Djebar

"At the beginning of autumn 1961 Frantz Fanon, a West Indian psychiatrist who has recently acquired, the same year, an international reputation with the publication of The Wretched of the Earth, returns to Tunis to see the G.P.R.A. He's been the representative of the 'Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic' in Ghana and Guinea. That is where he felt the first onset of his illness. His wife, Josie, was to tell me at length about those days of waiting and uncertainty in Tunis. The verdict seems worrying: lukemia has made its presence known. They quickly decide that Fanon should get the best care possible: he agrees to go for treatment to the United States. In New York the Algerian delegation to the United Nations includes among its members some of Fanon's personal friends.