In April 1961, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Frantz Fanon met in a café in Rome. The meeting, at least as recorded by de Beauvoir, went on for hours, reportedly until two in the morning, to the point of Sartre's 56- year-old body suffering fatigue. Sartre was in need of rest, urged de Beauvoir. Fanon, his 36-year-old body dying from leukaemia, resented her insistence: "I don't like men who hoard their resources.'¹ He wished to take advantage of that golden opportunity of talking to Sartre for weeks without rest if necessary. Yet, exhaustion prevailed, although the legendary meeting consisted of non-stop conversation for nearly three days. Sartre, impressed by the young revolutionary, had agreed to write the preface for The Wretched of the Earth, a work reputedly composed over ten strained weeks, and he and the editorial collective also agreed to publish the first chapter in the June issue of Les Temps modernes. Fanon's health worsened as the year went on. He eventually went to Bethesda, Maryland, for treatment in late November, where he was detained by the CIA and denied treatment. He died on 6 December from pneumonia.