- Paperback: 800 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (Oct 4 1994)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0679754792
- ISBN-13: 978-0679754794
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 2.9 x 20.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 726 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #409,965 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The definitive biography of Jean Genet, the incomparable French novelist whose works echo with themes of violent hierarchies, rituals of power and powerlessness and human identities as roles to be traded and manipulated. From his birth in 1911 to his adoption by foster parents and his tumultuous life as a runaway, thief, beggar and prostitute, Genet had remarkable powers of self-transformation, ultimately turning the pain of his life into writings that attracted the attention of literary trend-setter Jean Cocteau. Genet's work covered an amazing amount of social, political and intellectual territory. By diving into that which was awkward, ugly and painful, he emerged with the truth, transforming himself and others with its beauty. White earned the 1993 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography for this fine work.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
The NBCC Award-winning biography of Genet will be released in paperback in conjunction with two of White's novels, The Beautiful Room Is Empty ($11 ISBN -75540-3) and Forgetting Elena ($10 ISBN -75573-X).
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gay rollercoster ride,
By alexander laurence (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Genet: A Biography (Paperback)
Following the rags to riches life of Jean Genet is an interesting reliving of French literature and history. Edmund White is certainly capable of empathy and psychological understanding for Genet, unlike in his biographies if William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Though White makes the mistake of trying to incorporate some Michel Foucault, the homoseuxal philosopher, into his own penal insights into Jean Genet, the works and the man. Other than that fact, this handsome book is one long guitar solo at the altar of Genet.Most of Genet's life is well-known, and partly used as the subjects for his novels. Genet was an orphan, had foster parents, and went to reform school. He had a bunch of early gay relationships, and he stole a lot of books. In prison Genet wrote Our Lady of The Flowers, and later shows it to Jean Cocteau, who is pissed off because he didn't write a similiar work first. Genet wrote five novels and a few plays around and during World War II. They books are originally published anonymously. The books become an overnight sensation. As Genet becomes old and bald, and when the flamboyant Cocteau becomes bored with him, heterosexual Sartre and multisexual Simone de Beauvoir, both sort of yuppies of their time, become enamoured with the idea of hanging out and slumming it with Genet, a real thief. Sartre saw him as a good example of his existential philosophy, and wrote Saint Genet. This book of his life came out when Genet was in his mid-forties. Genet doesn't write very much during the last years of his life. He does become involved with the Black Panthers and Palestinians. Genet lived in Tangiers with his young Kiki. He wrote a final book that was banned before his death in 1986. Genet's life was one long homosexual rollercoster ride. Genet's long life is an achievement which White gives a literary form in this tribute and gentle biography. As far as literary biographies go, this one is up there with the biographies of Oscar Wilde, Sade, and Frank O'Hara.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Masterpiece,
This review is from: Genet: A Biography (Paperback)
Jean Genet wrote masterpieces,this autobiography is a masterpiece in itself !
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Masterpece,
This review is from: Genet: A Biography (Paperback)
Jean Genet wrote masterpieces...this autobiography is a masterpiece too !!!
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