Jean Genet

Genet, Jean (1910–86), French playwright and novelist. Pardoned from life imprisonment for repeated burglary convictions in 1948, Genet wrote of the homosexual underworld of France and the borderline between acceptable and unacceptable social behavior. His works include Our Lady of the Flowers (1943), The Thief's Journal (1948), and the plays The Balcony (1956) and The Blacks (1958).