Frantz Fanon (1925 61) was born in the French Caribbean island of Martinique. He studied medicine and psychiatry in France and worked in a hospital in Algeria between 1953 and 1956. He passionately identified with Algeria's armed struggle for independence and this led him to write The Wretched of the Earth (1961) which became a manifesto for the Third World. Black Skin, White Masks was first published in France in 1952.

Ziauddin Sardar is Visiting Professor of Science Policy at Middlesex University and consulting editor of the prestigious journal Futures. He is a prolific writer and is the author of Cultural Studies for Beginners, Barbaric Others: A Manifesto on Western Racism and editor, with Jerome Ravetz, of Cyberfutures: Culture and Politics on the Information Superhighway. "