Anticolonialism’s “Homosexual Territory”

Abstract

Frantz Fanon’s powerful conception of racial anticolonialism occurs in the shadow of his vexed treatment of homosexuality. This essay considers the traffic between Fanon’s anticoloniality and the recalcitrance of queer transnational writers to argue that sexuality obtains a political force in their fiction through specific citational practices. It explores how fabulation and farce enable a citational queer of color aesthetics that circulates around, unsettles, and adapts Fanon’s historical signatures. The essay ultimately traces a sphere of influence between literature and political culture that makes sexual politics the ground zero for statist decolonization and yet also always a sign of more radical possibility.