Genet, Jean << zhuh NAY, zhahn >> (1910-1986), a French author, became known for his violent, complex plays. Genet’s characters include murderers, thieves, gay people, and prostitutes. Genet himself was gay, and he had been a thief as a young man. In 1948, Genet was sentenced to life imprisonment as a habitual criminal. However, his sentence was commuted (made less severe) through the intervention of several prominent French writers, notably Jean-Paul Sartre.
The criminal or morally controversial actions of Genet’s characters have the solemn quality of ritual. Many of the characters who perform them adopt the identity of such a respectable person as a bishop or a police chief. Genet suggested that the difference between people considered good and bad by a society may be less than it seems.
Genet was born on Dec. 19, 1910, in Paris and died there on April 15, 1986. His plays include The Maids (1947), Deathwatch (produced in 1949, but written before The Maids), The Balcony (1956), The Blacks (1958), and The Screens (1961). He also wrote Our Lady of the Flowers (1942), a novel; and The Thief’s Journal (1949), a journal of his early life.
