Intended as an accessible and challenging introduction to Jean Genet, this new short biography and critical work cuts directly to the essence of Genet's life, a life of extraordinary spectacle that was always profoundly entangled with his work. Stephen Barber emphasises those elements that made his life particularly inspirational in the 1960s and which continue to make it vital for readers today. Genet's work is a distillation of preoccupations and reinventions of crucial matters - sex, desire, death and revolution - all of which became mediated in the form of his own travels, imprisonments, sexual and emotional relationships, political engagements and protests. The book focuses directly on moments in Genet's life in which those preoccupations are vividly projected for the reader. Genet's novels, theatre works and film projects have been hugely influential for a vast array of writers, film-makers, choreographers and theatre directors, especially at moments of social crisis. Genet has also been an ambivalent icon for the gay movement, for transvestite cultures and for creative and revolutionary individuals internationally.
This book will appeal to a wide range of readers: those engaged with sexual, gender, political and revolutionary issues, all of which are illuminated by Genet's life and work. It will also appeal to extensive readerships of students, of history, literature, theatre, film and visual media in particular.