QUOTE : In his Preface to the first edition of Peau noire, masques blancs Francis Jeanson tells how one day he wrote to Fanon asking for clarification of a particularly obscure passage in the book. An answer was duly furnished and Fanon added: "This passage is inexplicable. When I write such things I seek to touch my reader in his emotions, i.e., irrationally, almost sensually." Further on in his letter Fanon goes on to confess how he is drawn to the magic of words and that for him language is the ultimate refuge, once it is freed from conventions, from its voice of reason and the terror of coming face-to-face with oneself. "Words for me have a powerful effect. I feel it impossible to escape from the sting of a word or the vertigo of a question mark." He went on to say that, like Césaire, he wanted to sink beneath the stupefying lava of words that have the color of quivering flesh.