I’m reminded of being a young guy, a teenager, and I was fascinated with books, but I couldn’t afford many of them because they were so expensive. So I would go into Robin’s bookstore in Center City, and I would walk in there and read until my hearts content. I really didn’t have intention to buy many books, and again, I couldn’t afford them, but I remember picking up a book called The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, a strange name like that. And I turned it around, and it talked about the book being considered — it was either the handbook of the Black revolution or the Bible of the Black revolution. I’m not sure which, but having read that on the back cover, I was in. I was sold. I mean, this is a book not only that I was required to read as a young member of the Black Panther Party, but I wanted to read it, and I wanted to devour it. If I could have eaten it, I would have done it.
It was a wonderful and thrilling experience, and that was its first English translation. I think that its second translation leaves something to be desired. I think both translations are difficult to really capture the remarkable brilliance of a guy like Frantz Fanon, but the first edition, because that’s the one that really rings in memory and in mind, had a bit of beauty in it and a bit of poetry in it that does not survive to the present, but we remember. Reading when you’re a teenager will ring in your brain as long as you live. With love, not fear, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
