Jean Genet

Paris (France), 1910 - 1986.

French writer, playwright and filmmaker, he spent much of his youth in a reformatory. From 1930 he lived as a globe-trotter and moved through the underworld of prostitution and crime. Imprisoned in 1940, he was granted a pardon in 1949. During his years of imprisonment he read extensively, completed his training and wrote numerous fiction novels, including Notre-Dame des fleurs (1944), Miracle de la rose (1946) and Journal du voleur (1949), a portrait of the underworld written in the first person, in which he reflected his passion for evil, according to his own expression, which was opposed to socially established values. With the play Les Bonnes (1946), which anticipated the ways of the theatre of the absurd, he revealed himself as one of the most outstanding playwrights of avant-garde theatre. Already released, he wrote the plays Le Balcon (1956) and Les Paravents (1961), which sought to expose social prejudices. His original position attracted intellectuals of the stature of Sartre, and in 1983 he was awarded the Prize of Honor of the French Letters.