Genet: A Biography

by Edmund White

Overview

A meticulously researched biography of Jean Genet, one of France's most notorious writers. Acclaimed novelist and essayist Edmund White illuminates Genet's experiences in the worlds of crime, homosexuality, politics, and high culture, and gives a compelling analysis of Genet's plays, novels, and essays. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780679754794
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/04/1994
Pages:	800
Product dimensions:	5.19(w) x 7.99(h) x 2.13(d)

About the Author

Edmund White was born in Cincinnati in 1940. His previous books include Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America, A Boy's Own Story, Caracole and The Beautiful Room Is Empty. He lives in Paris.

Editorial Reviews

'Dazzling. Genet has found a scrupulous, meticulous chronicler in Edmund White.' — Philip Henscher, The Guardian

'An absorbing and magisterial biography...a labor of love in every sense. A comparable achievement [is] Richard Ellmann's biography of Oscar Wilde.'

— John Bayley, The Evening Standard

'Elegant, meticulous and wholly satisfying.'

— Brian Masters, The Sunday telegraph

'White has caught the uncatchable man — the public Genet as well as the recluse: no better praise can be given a biographer.'

— Paul Bailey, The Daily Telegraph

From the Publisher

The NBCC Award-winning biography of Genet will be released in paperback in conjunction with two of White's novels, The Beautiful Room Is Empty ($11 ISBN -75540-3) and Forgetting Elena ($10 ISBN -75573-X). (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

French writer Jean Genet (1910-86) was a petty thief who produced some of the most revolutionary novels and plays of our time. White's massive biography illuminates the life and works of this ``deeply contradictory man,'' although many events from his early years of vagabondage and prostitution are beyond retrieval. A greater mystery--which even White, an accomplished novelist ( A Boy's Own Story , LJ 9/1/82; The Beautiful Room Is Empty , LJ 3/1/88), cannot solve--is how someone of Genet's limited education could have produced a first novel of such magnitude as Our Lady of the Flowers ( LJ 11/1/63). (Parallels with the case of Shakespeare are not far-fetched.) This work is a labor of love and admiration. Essential for collections of modern literature. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/93.-- Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.

Library Journal