This is the last and most profound book from one of the greatest
French writers of the 20th century. Jean Genet knew he was dying
when he came to pen this political analysis of the Middle East
conflict, and he poured every ounce of his poetic soul into its
structure. What we have is a man in despair - for life passing, for
opportunities lost, for people with the yoke of injustice to bear.
He died within days of completing his masterwork. In order to
understand the depth of Genet's writing it is necessary to know
about his troubled life. He was abandoned in Paris as a baby,
raised in a series of institutions and turned to crime as a child.
Later he joined the Foreign Legion, deserted, became a pimp and a
thief, considered criminals to be the cream of society and revered
pornography as an art form. Throughout his life he championed the
causes of underdogs and villains - society's misfits like himself.
In this epic finale to his literary career he tells of the two
years he spent in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, and espouses
the Palestinian cause against the Israelis. It is a deeply lyrical
and at times puzzling book, often going off at tangents to discuss
image as a political weapon, and the oppression that he sees as a
vicious foundation of civilization. His own tortured soul seems to
be crying out with that of the Palestinians he describes so
heartrendingly. The book is too one-sided to be considered
objective and it is a difficult read, but as an insight into the
mind of downtrodden people everywhere it is moving and salutary.
Translator Barbara Bray has done a remarkable job in projecting the
subtleties of Genet's philosophy from French into English without
harming its poetic essence. (Kirkus UK)
Starting in 1970, Jean Genet-petty thief, prostitute, modernist
master-spent two years in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan.
Always an outcast himself, Genet was drawn to this displaced
people, an attraction that was to prove as complicated for him as
it was enduring. Prisoner of Love, written some ten years later,
when many of the men Genet had known had been killed, and he
himself was dying, is a beautifully observed description of that
time and those men as well as a reaffirmation of the author's
commitment not only to the Palestinian revolution but to rebellion
itself. For Genet's most overtly political book is also his most
personal-the last step in the unrepentantly sacrilegious pilgrimage
first recorded in The Thief's Journal, and a searching meditation,
packed with visions, ruses, and contradictions, on such
life-and-death issues as the politics of the image and the
seductive and treacherous character of identity. Genet's final
masterpiece is a lyrical and philosophical voyage to the bloody
intersection of oppression, terror, and desire at the heart of the
contemporary world.
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