Shon Faye on rethinking violence and power

Seven books that changed my perspective

• 

  The Wretched of the Earth

  by Frantz Fanon

  (non-fiction)

  This is one of the most significant works about colonial violence ever written. And, as a white person growing up in the West, this book helped me to grasp the idea that my own inclinations towards pacifism and nonviolence must be contextualised by an understanding that violence comes in many forms. 

  The violence of colonisation is often rendered invisible or institutionalised over time and is psychic as well as physical. Fanon argues that many revolutionary struggles of colonised peoples have necessitated armed resistance and that this is in fact a form of counterviolence. 

  This book was criticised by many of Fanon’s contemporaries, such as Hannah Arendt, on publication, and remains controversial – but it is an essential read.

• 

  The Shock Doctrine

  by Naomi Klein

  (non-fiction)

  There isn’t a modern political writer whose work I admire more than Naomi Klein. All of her books are worth our time, but The Shock Doctrine contains a fascinating analysis of how the “War on Terror” and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (among other other historical disasters) were exploited by political actors to implement unpopular free market capitalist policies like privatisation, while civilian populations are too stunned to realise what is happening. It helped me to understand that the violence of warfare often serves to make elites great wealth.

• 

  Who Killed My Father

  by Edouard Louis

  (non-fiction)

  This novel is styled as a letter from the narrator, a gay working-class writer, to his now aged, dying father. It not only explores violence as it appears in the family and in dysfunctional patriarchal masculinity (Louis’ father was a terrorising, violent figure throughout his childhood), but also in its social forms. The book also suggests that France’s long neglect of its working classes – men like the narrator’s father –  is itself a form of violence.

• 

  On Violence and On Violence Against Women

  by Jacqueline Rose

  (non-fiction)

  There isn’t enough modern feminist analysis of violence (it became an unfashionable topic in feminist thought after the 1980s), but Jacqueline Rose’s 2021 book is an exception. Leaning on Hannah Arendt’s work, Rose argues that misogynist violence is a product of extreme ‘thoughtlessness’, its perpetrators unable to think about their desire to inflict pain. It made me realise that too much of contemporary feminism ignores the role of violence in shaping women’s lives, and even in shaping womanhood as a political category.

• 

  Dead Man Walking

  by Sister Helen Prejean

  (non-fiction)

  I first encountered this memoir by a Catholic nun visiting violent killers on death row in the United States, 20 years ago when I was at school. Prejean’s relationship with men who have committed heinous crimes and her own rejection of capital punishment, compels her to reflect on the nature of harm and how we can possibly forgive it. In one memorable part of the book, she speaks to the families of the victims of the men she is advising spiritually and feels their fury. This book forced my younger self to consider the nature of criminal justice and whether justice can ever lie in execution.

• 

  Bring Up The Bodies

  by Hilary Mantel

  (fiction)

  One for the fiction readers. While there is very little violence in this book (except the beheading of Anne Boleyn at its conclusion), its narrative is shaped by the constant threat of it: the book’s opening describes the London summer as a “riot of dismemberment”. It is a fascinating study of how political power is shaped through and by violence.

• 

  Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash

  by S Lamble

  (non-fiction)

  This book is brand new, but clarified so many things I’ve been thinking about the past few years. Taking the anti-trans backlash that has gripped the UK as its starting point, readers are provided with a fascinating historical account of how feminists and queer people alike threw their lot in with a broken, ineffective criminal justice system. Unsafe is a challenging, rigorous and genuinely nuanced read for those interested in a more expansive lens on both feminism and queer liberation in Britain.