Jean Genet ((1910-12-19)December 19, 1910 – April 15, 1986(1986-04-15)) was a prominent and controversial French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing. His major works include the novels Querelle of Brest, The Thief's Journal, and Our Lady of the Flowers, and the plays The Balcony, The Blacks, The Maids and The Screens.
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“Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.”
—Jean Genet (19101986)
“The star is the ultimate American verification of Jean Jacques Rousseaus Emile. His mere existence proves the perfectability of any man or woman. Oh wonderful pliability of human nature, in a society where anyone can become a celebrity! And where any celebrity ... may become a star!”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“Perhaps having built a barricade when youre sixteen provides you with a sort of safety rail. If youve once taken part in building one, even inadvertently, doesnt its usually latent image reappear like a warning signal whenever youre tempted to join the police, or support any manifestation of Law and Order?”
—Jean Genet (19101986)