Francis Jeanson on his unsparing critique of THE REBEL by Albert Camus

Francis Jeanson (1922-2009) was a writer, existential philosopher and social critic known mostly for taking intellectual engagement to the next level by organizing the JEANSON NETWORK(portiers de valise or 'suitcase carriers' who collected funds for Algerian revolutionaries during their decolonization war against France) and for igniting the simmering feud between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus through his unsparingly rigorous critique of THE REBEL which was published in Sartre's journal LES TEMPS MODERNE.

This literary melee over Marxism would soon be eclipsed by a full scale intellectual brawl over Algerian decolonization with Sartre & Jeanson backing 'the rebels' and Camus endorsing western imperialism through silent neutrality.

Not so well known is the fact that Jeanson not only wrote the original preface(which has never been translated into English) to BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS by Frantz Fanon but also suggested the very title of the book to Fanon as well.

The only one of Jeanson's books to be translated into English is SARTRE & THE PROBLEM OF MORALITY which Sartre himself personally endorsed as the definitive work on Sartrean existential ethics. Jeanson's critique of Camus can be found in SARTRE and CAMUS: A HISTORIC CONFRONTATION edited and translated by Sprintzen and Van Den Hoven. FRANCIS JEANSON by Marie-Pierre Ulloa is an outstanding biography of Jeanson in spite of Ulloa's unconvincing reduction of Fanon's influence on Jeanson to a fetish.

This excerpt was selected by the BROTHERWISE DISPATCH(brotherwise.com) editorial committee.

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• albert camus
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• intellectual engagement
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• decolonization
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