Jean Genet
Jean Genet (1910-86), French novelist and playwright. The unwanted son of a prostitute, he fell into a life of petty crime and spent much of his youth in reform school and prison. His first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers (1944), was written in prison and brought Genet to the attention of Sartre and other literary figures. Like The Miracle of the Rose (1946) and The Thief’s Journal (1949), it is a lyrical account of crime and prostitution based largely on Genet’s own experiences. From the later 1940s Genet also wrote for the theatre. Such plays as The Maids (1946), The Balcony (1956), and The Blacks (1959) combined poetry and ritual with violent attacks on accepted moral values.
