Laroche's exhaustive research provides a historical framework for examining Jean Genet's later non-fiction work, particularly Prisoner of Love, and the ways in which his political ideals and experiences shaped his worldview. Laroche focuses specifically on Genet's involvement with Germany's Red Army Faction, the Black Panthers in the United States, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The disenfranchisement of these three groups led Genet to ask difficult questions about philosophy and linguistics. Among these was the distinction between brutality and violence, the former representing attacks by the oppressors against the oppressed, and the latter being the necessary acts of retaliation taken by the disenfranchised. Genet makes a similar argument concerning murder and assassination. Speaking on behalf of Black Panther George Jackson in 1971, Genet wrote, "I have come to that part of my speech where, to help save the blacks, I am calling for crime, for the assassination of whites." Genet ties these groups together with language, noting, "The Black Panthers and the Palestinians...all have fought windmills: windmills of racist language and the fear that follows it." He discusses the difficulties of an oppressed minority when working within the same spoken language of its oppressors. Read alongside the primary texts, this book is a helpful supplement, but the point may be lost on less ardent fans.
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"This is a magnificent book that gives us the metamorphoses of the last Genet, the poet of the jouissance of evil saved from abjection by his sacred relation with the language of the sublime."
—Elisabeth Roudinesco
"Genet's last journey, as revealed by Laroche, is imbued with beauty, metamorphosis and emancipation on one hand, and monstrosity, nihilism and hopelessness on the other. An indispensible study for readers interested in Genet, the Black Panthers, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict or, more generally, the philosophy of humanism."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Highly recommended for readers interested in Genet and his works."
—Library Journal
"Laroche's exhaustive research provides a historical framework for examining Jean Genet's later non-fiction work, particularly Prisoner of Love, and the ways in which his political ideals and experiences shaped his worldview."
—Publishers Weekly
"Hadrien Laroche’s eloquent, evocative meditation on mid-20th-century French writer Jean Genet focuses on the last and surprising phase of the life of an author remembered as a scandal-causing gay novelist, experimental playwright and defender of the oppressed ... Ably translated by David Homel, Laroche’s book serves as a timely homage that marks the centenary of Genet’s birth on December 19, 1910 ... Laroche writes in the tradition of the French essay, at once lyrical and densely analytic. It’s a line of thought that runs from Montaigne through Camus and all the way up to Derrida. Laroche meditates on the images of the era (including that emblematic triumvirate of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll), the oscillations of politics and violence, and on the last years of the paradoxical Genet, rebel and humanist."
—Stan Persky, The Globe and Mail
This book has a timely release as December 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jean Genet, the French writer most famous for such plays as The Maids and The Balcony. Genet died in 1986, with his last book, the autobiographical Captif Amoureux (Prisoner of Love), published posthumously. French novelist Laroche's book, published in French in 1997, concentrates on the last 18 years of Genet's life, a time when he became especially politically active, as Prisoner of Love showed, which Laroche analyzes and refers to here. He examines Genet's associations with groups considered "in revolt," including the Black Panthers, the PLO, and Germany's Red Army Faction. Laroche analyzes and connects Genet's writing to his involvement with these disenfranchised political groups. A former petty criminal and prisoner, Genet commiserated with these displaced groups and tried to give a voice to those who (he thought) had none. This English translation also has a new supplement not found in the original French edition. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers interested in Genet and his works and for libraries with French literature collections.—Erica Swenson Danowitz, Delaware Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Media, PA
A critical investigation of French writer and philosopher Jean Genet (1910–1986) in his later years, 1968 until his death.
Unfailingly controversial and provocative during his life, Genet is now known for novels like Our Lady of the Flowers (1943) and The Thief's Journal (1949), plays likeThe Blacks(1958) and numerous books of poetry includingThe Man Sentenced to Death(1945). Less studied but perhaps more contentious are his later works likeThe Prisoner of Love(1986), as well as his political activism among such disenfranchised groups as the Black Panthers in the United States and the Palestinians in the Middle East. In his first English-language translation (first published in France, this book was nominated for the Prix Fémina in 1997), essayist and novelist Laroche demonstrates how Genet's philosophy became increasingly unsettled as he delved deeper into the lives of people like George Jackson, Malcolm X, Bobby Seale and Yasser Arafat, as well as his own origin and identity. The trope of identity pervades this text as the author reveals Genet's struggles to come to terms with issues regarding race, homeland, origins, nation, borders and power. For example, Laroche examines the nuanced and tenuous difference between violence and brutality, ultimately suggesting that the violence by Black Americans during the civil-rights era was a valid response to the brutality and oppression perpetrated by whites. The key to understanding Genet, writes the author, is through language, which underlies identity, homeland and "the heart of the writer." Genet's discoveries and conclusions were consistently insightful and provocative, though not always desirable, moral or ethical. His last journey, as revealed by Laroche, is imbued with beauty, metamorphosis and emancipation on one hand, and monstrosity, nihilism and hopelessness on the other.
An indispensible study for readers interested in Genet, the Black Panthers, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict or, more generally, the philosophy of humanism.
