(French writer and later
Political Activist . Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal; later in life, Genet wrote novels, plays, poems, and essays, including ''
Querelle De Brest '', ''
The Thief's Journal '', ''
Our Lady Of The Flowers '', ''
The Balcony '', ''
The Blacks '' and ''
The Maids ''.
Genet's mother was a young prostitute who raised him for the first year of his life before putting him up for
Adoption . Thereafter Genet was raised in the provinces by a carpenter and his family, who according to
Edmund White 's
Biography , were loving and attentive. While he received excellent grades in school, his childhood involved a series of attempts at running away and incidents of petty
Theft (although White also suggests that Genet's later claims of a dismal, impoverished childhood were exaggerated to fit his outlaw image).
After the death of his foster mother, Genet was placed with an elderly couple but remained with them less than two years. According to the wife, "he was going out nights and also seemed to be wearing makeup." On one occasion he squandered a considerable sum of money, which they had entrusted him for delivery elsewhere, on a visit to a local fair. For this and other misdemeanors, including repeated acts of vagrancy, he was sent at the age of 15 to
Mettray Penal Colony where he was detained between 2 September 1926 and 1 March 1929. In ''
The Miracle Of The Rose '' (
1946 ), he gives an account of this period of detention, which ended at the age of 18 when he joined the
Foreign Legion . He was eventually given a dishonorable discharge on grounds of indecency (having been caught engaged in a
Homosexual act) and spent a period as a vagabond, petty thief and
Prostitute across
Europe — experiences he recounts in ''
The Thief's Journal '' (
1949 ). After returning to
Paris, France in
1937 Genet was in and out of prison through a series of arrests for theft, use of false papers,
Vagabondage , lewd acts and other offenses. In prison, Genet wrote his first poem, "Le condamné à mort," which he had printed at his own cost and the novel ''
Our Lady Of The Flowers '' (
1944 ). In Paris, Genet sought out and introduced himself to
Jean Cocteau , who was impressed by his writing. Cocteau used his contacts to get Genet's novel published and when in
1949 after ten convictions, Genet was threatened with a
Life Sentence , Cocteau, joined by other key figures such as
Jean-Paul Sartre and
Pablo Picasso , successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never again return to prison.
By
1949 Genet had completed five novels, three plays and numerous poems. His explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of
Homosexuality and criminality was such that by the early 1950s, his work was banned in the
United States .Edward de Grazia, ''An Interview with Jean Genet''. Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 307-324. Sartre wrote a long analysis of Genet's
Existential development (from vagrant to writer) entitled ''Saint Genet comédien et martyr'' (
1952 ) which was anonymously published as the first volume of Genet's complete works. Genet was strongly affected by Sartre's analysis and did not write for the following five years. Between
1955 and
1961 Genet wrote three more plays as well as an essay called "What Remains of a
Rembrandt Torn Into Four Equal Pieces and Flushed Down the Toilet", on which hinged
Jacques Derrida 's analysis of Genet in his seminal work "Glas". During this time he became emotionally attached to Abdallah, a tightrope walker. However, following a number of accidents and Abdallah's
Suicide in
1964 , Genet entered a period of
Depression , and attempted suicide.
From the late
1960s , starting with a homage to
Daniel Cohn-Bendit after the events of May
1968 , Genet became politically active. He participated in demonstrations drawing attention to the living conditions of
Immigrant s in France. In
1970 the
Black Panthers invited him to the USA where he stayed for three months giving lectures, attending the trial of their leader,
Huey Newton and publishing articles in their journals. Later the same year he spent six months in
Palestinian refugee camps, secretly meeting
Yasser Arafat near Amman. Profoundly moved by his experiences in
Jordan and the USA, Genet wrote a final lengthy memoir about his experiences, ''A Prisoner of Love'', which would be published after his death. Genet also supported
Angela Davis and
George Jackson , as well as
Michel Foucault and
Daniel Defert's Prison Information Group. He worked with Foucault and Sartre to protest
Police Brutality against Algerians in Paris, a problem persisting since the
Algerian War Of Independence , when beaten bodies were to be found floating in the
Seine . In September
1982 Genet was in
Beirut when the massacres took place in the Palestinian camps of
Sabra And Shatila . In response, Genet published "Quatre heures à Chatila" (Four Hours in Shatila), an account of his visit to Shatila after the event. In one of his rare public appearances during the later period of his life, at the invitation of Austrian philosopher
Hans Köchler he read from his work during the inauguration of an exhibition on the massacre of Sabra and Shatila, organized by the
International Progress Organization in
Vienna ,
Austria , on 19 December 1983. (
Genet in Vienna )
Genet developed throat
Cancer and was found dead on April 15,
1986 in a hotel room in Paris. Genet may have fallen on the floor and fatally hit his head. He was buried in the
Spanish Cemetery in
Larache ,
Morocco .
Throughout his five early novels, Genet works to subvert the traditional set of
Moral Values of his assumed readership. He celebrates a beauty in
Evil , emphasizing his singularity as he raises violent criminals to
Icon s, enjoys the specificity of gay gesture and coding and depicts scenes of betrayal.
The first novel, ''
Our Lady Of The Flowers '' (
1944 ), is a journey through the prison underworld, featuring a fictionalized alter-ego by the name of Divine, usually referred to in the feminine, at the center of a circle of ''tantes'' ("aunties" or "queens") with colorful sobriquets such as Our Lady of the Flowers, Mimosa I, Mimosa II and First Communion. The two auto-fictional novels, ''
The Miracle Of The Rose '' (
1946 ) and ''
The Thief's Journal '' (
1949 ), describe Genet's time in
Mettray Penal Colony and his experiences as a vagabond and prostitute across Europe. ''
Querelle De Brest '' (
1947 ) is set in the midst of the port town of Brest, where sailors and the sea are associated with
Murder , and ''
Funeral Rites '' (
1949 ) is a story of love and betrayal across political divides, written this time for the narrator's lover, Jean Decarnin, killed by the
Germans in
WWII .
''
A Prisoner Of Love '' published in (
1986 ), after Genet's death, is a memoir of his encounters with Palestinian fighters and Black Panthers; it has, therefore, a more documentary tone than his fiction.
Associated by some critics with the
Theatre Of Cruelty , Genet's plays present highly-stylized depictions of ritualistic struggles between outcasts of various kinds and their oppressors.See Martin Esslin's book for one perspective on Genet's relationship both to
Artaud 's '
Theatre Of Cruelty ' and to Esslin's own
Theatre Of The Absurd . Social identities are parodied and shown to involve complex layering through a complex manipulation of the dramatic fiction and its inherent potential for theatricality and role-play; maids
Imitate one another and their mistress in ''
The Maids '' (
1949 ); or the clients of a brothel simulate roles of political power before, in a dramatic reversal, actually becoming those figures, all surrounded by mirrors that both reflect and conceal, in ''
The Balcony '' (
1956 ). Most strikingly, Genet develops what
Aimé Césaire called
Negritude in ''
The Blacks '' (
1958 ), presenting a violent assertion of Black identity and anti-white virulence framed in terms of mask-wearing and roles adopted and discarded. His most overtly-political play is ''
The Screens '' (
1963 ), an epic account of the Algerian War of Independence.
''
The Blacks '' was, after ''
The Balcony '', the second of Genet's plays to be staged in New York. The production was the longest running
Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade. Originally premiered in Paris in 1959, this 1961 New York production ran for 1,408 performances. The original cast featured
James Earl Jones ,
Roscoe Lee Browne ,
Louis Gossett, Jr. ,
Cicely Tyson ,
Godfrey Cambridge ,
Maya Angelou and
Charles Gordone .
In
1950 , Genet directed
Un Chant D'Amour , a 26-minute black-and-white film depicting the
Fantasies of a gay male prisoner and his prison warden.
Genet's work has also been adapted for film and produced by other filmmakers. In 1982,
Rainer Werner Fassbinder released ''
Querelle '', his final film which is based on ''
Querelle De Brest ''. It starred
Brad Davis ,
Jeanne Moreau and
Franco Nero . Genet never saw this film because he would not have been allowed to smoke in a movie theatre.
Todd Haynes '
Homoerotic movie ''
Poison '' was also based on the writings of Genet.
Several of Genet's plays were adapted into films. ''
The Balcony '' (1963), directed by
Joseph Strick , starred
Shelley Winters ,
Peter Falk ,
Lee Grant and
Leonard Nimoy .
Tony Richardson directed a film, ''
Mademoiselle '', which was based on a short story by Genet. It starred
Jeanne Moreau with the screenplay written by
Marguerite Duras .
His play, ''
The Maids '' was made into a film starring
Glenda Jackson ,
Susannah York and
Vivien Merchant .
Jean Genet, ''Œuvres completes'' (Paris: Gallimard, 1952-)
- Volume 1: ''Saint Genet: comédien et martyr'' (by J.-P. Sartre)
- Volume 2: ''Notre-Dame des fleurs - Le condamné à mort - Miracle de la rose - Un chant d’amour''
- Volume 3: ''Pompes funèbres - Le pêcheur du Suquet - Querelle de Brest''
- Volume 4: ''L’étrange mot d’ ... - Ce qui est resté d’un Rembrandt déchiré en petits carrés - Le balcon - Les bonnes - Haute surveillance -Lettres à Roger Blin - Comment jouer ’Les bonnes’ - Comment jouer ’Le balcon’''
- Volume 5: ''Le funambule - Le secret de Rembrandt - L’atelier d’Alberto Giacometti - Les nègres - Les paravents - L’enfant criminel''
- Volume 6: ''L’ennemi déclaré: textes et entretiens''
- Barber, Stephen (2004) ''Jean Genet'' Reaktion Books, London, ISBN 1-86189-178-4 - biography and critique;
- Coe, Richard N. (1968) ''The Vision of Genet'' Grove Press, New York;
- Driver, Tom Faw (1966) ''Jean Genet'' Columbia University Press, New York;
- El Maleh, Edmond Amran (1988) ''Jean Genet, Le captif amoureux : et autres essais'' Pensée sauvage, Grenoble, ISBN 2-85919-064-3 ;
- Eribon, Didier (2001) ''Une morale du minoritaire: Variations sur un thème de Jean Genet'' Librairie Artème Fayard, Paris - critique, ISBN 2-213-60918-7;
- Hubert, Marie-Claude (1996) ''L'esthétique de Jean Genet'' SEDES, Paris ISBN 2-7181-9036-1
- Jablonka, Ivan (2004) ''Les vérités inavouables de Jean Genet'' Éditions du Seuil, Paris - critique, ISBN 2-02-067940-X;
- Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz (1968) ''Jean Genet'' Twayne Publishers, New York;
- McMahon, Joseph H. (1963)''The Imagination of Jean Genet'' Yale University Press, New Haven;
- Sartre , Jean-Paul (1952) ''Saint Genet, comédien et martyr'' Gallimard, Paris;
- Webb, Richard C. (1992) ''File on Genet'' Methuen Drama, London, ISBN 0-413-65530-X - a general introduction;
- White, Edmund (1993) ''Genet: A Biography'' Chatto and Windus, London, ISBN 0-88001-331-1
