Genet, Jean

Genet, Jean (1910-1986), French novelist and dramatist, whose writings, dwelling upon bizarre and grotesque aspects of human existence, express profound rebellion against society and its conventions.

Born on December 19, 1910, in Paris, Genet was the illegitimate child of a prostitute. He was caught stealing at the age of ten and by early adolescence had begun to serve a series of sentences for theft and homosexual prostitution that spanned nearly 30 years. In 1947, following his tenth conviction for theft, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. While he was in prison Genet had been writing and publishing, and his growing literary reputation induced a group of leading French authors to petition for his pardon, which was granted in 1948 by the president of France.

Genet's first novel, an autobiographical work about homosexuality and life in the underworld, was Notre-Dame des Fleurs (1944; Our Lady of the Flowers, 1964). His later novels include Le Journal du voleur (1949; The Thief's Journal, 1961), Le Miracle de la rose (1951; The Miracle of the Rose, 1967), and Pompes Funèbres (1953; Funeral Rites, 1969). Lyric imagery and use of underworld argot (slang) are characteristic of his prose.

In 1947 Genet turned to drama, the medium in which he made his greatest impact. His first play, Les Bonnes (1947; The Maids, 1954), one of his most successful, marked his entry into the movement known as the Theatre of the Absurd. In the play two maids take turns at playing the role of their mistress, seeking their identities amid ever-shifting reality and illusion. In the plays Haute Surveillance (1949; Deathwatch, 1954), Le Balcon (1957; The Balcony, 1958), Les Nègres (1959; The Blacks, 1960), and Le Paravent (1961; The Screens, 1962), Genet often used role playing and the inversion of good and evil as techniques for commenting on the falseness of social and political values.

All Genet's works expose his deep sense of sympathy with the outcasts of society as they are confronted by omnipresent crime, sex, and death. His plays are filled with ritual, cruelty, and his conviction of the absurdity of moral concepts. Although his writings were at first considered pornographic, Genet was soon recognized as an existentialist grappling with problems of identity and alienation, and he came to be regarded as one of the most influential 20th-century writers. In 1983 he was awarded the Grand Prix National des Lettres.