Must-Read Books About Colonialism

Edna Bonhomme is the author of Tending To Our Wounds: A Diasporic Memoir, out now from Haymarket Books. Below, she recommends three must-read books about colonialism. (Photo credit: Jasmin Valcarcel) All empires are obsessed with the prospect of their own decline. For marginalized people born and raised in the heart of empires, some plot and hope for their demise. As someone who is part of multiple diasporas forced to leave their lands, I often turn to theorists and scholars who not only grapple with colonialism’s chains but also make sense of how it shaped the psyche, family, or rebellions. There are so many books to choose from, texts that nourish my spirit and inspire me to work toward building a better world. The texts I have chosen are not only case studies of the psychological cost of colonialism but also testaments that the colonized are not passive victims. Hopefully, they provide some hope in these times. The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz FanonFanon’s text is a revolutionary pamphlet and a psychiatrist’s diagnosis of French colonialism in Algeria, and it also makes a firm case that colonialism can psychologically impair the minds of colonizers. Wretched of the Earth has ...