Genet jean

1949 · 153061 — Paris: Gallimard 1949. A scarce inscribed copy of the author's autobiographical novel First trade edition warmly inscribed by the author on the half-title "à Jean Dutourd et à sa femme mes amitiés sincères. Toute ma gentille sympathie á fort de gentillesse. Mais c'est votre fillette qui est encore la plus adorable Jean Genet" "to Jean Dutourd and his wife my sincere friendship. All my kind sympathy to so much kindness. But it's your little girl who is still the most adorable Jean Genet". This recipient was the novelist and member of the Académie française Jean Dutourd 1920-2011 his wife Camille and their daughter Clara who was three years old at the time of publication. As a critic Dutourd had largely respected Genet as a writer with "a deep mind an original poetic gift and complete intrepidity in his writings" quoted in Jablonka our translation. However he was affronted by Genet's final play The Screens 1961 and wrote a particularly scathing review for France Soir. Comprising 17 individual scenes The Screens depicts an Arab insurrection against a buffoonish colonial power: a thinly veiled satire on French colonial power that references both the French conquest of Algeria in the 1840s and the then-ongoing Algerian War 1954-1962. An abridged version of The Screens premiered in Berlin in May 1961 and it was first performed in its entirety in Stockholm in 1964. Its French premier wasn't until April 1966 when it debuted at the Odéon theatre under the direction of Roger Blin. Dutourd joined a sea of critical animosity denouncing Genet as a once-great poet who had become "an official artist who like the others has made a career out of the uprising and has done well for it" quoted in Jablonka our translation. Journal du Voleur was first circulated earlier the same year in a limited edition of 410 copies for subscribers published anonymously by Albert Skira. The present edition was partially redacted by Genet to remove some of the more risqué elements. This semi-autobiographical novel follows its debauched criminal protagonist across Europe as he appropriates Christian language inverts virtues and vices and creates a religion of criminality in opposition to the society which has shaped him. Journal du voleur is dedicated to Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and prompted Sartre's 1952 essay "Saint Genet" an attempt to "prove that genius is not a gift but the way out that one invents in desperate cases" quoted in Gaitet p. 16. Octavo. Original white wrappers printed in red and black fore and lower edges untrimmed. Spine toned and a little creased with tiny chips to ends short closed tears to ends of rear joints lower corners lightly creased wrappers and lower edge a touch soiled contents toned. A very good copy indeed. Pascale Gaitet Queens and Revolutionaries New Readings of Jean Genet 2003; Ivan Jablonka Les Vérités inavouables de Jean Genet 2004. unknown