The Thief's Journal - Softcover

Genet, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571250335 ISBN 13: 9780571250332

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2015

Synopsis

Part-autobiography, part-fiction - 'a Genet with a Genet stuffing, like the prunes of Tours', as Sartre put it - The Thief's Journal is an account of Genet's impoverished travels across Europe in the 1930s. Encompassing vagrancy, petty theft, and prostitution, the book transforms such degradations into the gilded rites of an inverted moral code, with Genet its most devout adherent. Betrayal becomes worship; delinquency, heroism. The skeleton of the work is a series of gay encounters between the 'hero' and a succession of shady figures - the con artist, the pimp, the detective even - from the European demi-monde. Appropriating the language of the Church, Genet creates a homily to a trinity of his own making - homosexuality, theft and deception. First published in 1949, The Thief's Journal is justly regarded as a masterpiece of existentialist prose, and is a milestone in the history of gay literature.

About this title

Review:

Genet has dramatized the story of his own life with a power and vision which take the breath away . . . One of the strongest and most vital accounts of a life ever set down on paper . . . The Thief’s Journal will undoubtedly establish Genet as one of the most daring literary figures of all time. (New York Post)

A literary creation of great importance and midnight beauty. (Library Journal)

Only a handful of twentieth-century writers, such as Kafka and Proust, have as important, as authoritative, as irrevocable a voice and style. (Susan Sontag)

Book Description:

The Thief's Journal by Jean Genet is a novel like few others, described by the New York Post as possessing 'a power and vision which take the breath away', and by Jean-Paul Sartre as 'the most beautiful book that Genet has written.'

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber and Faber
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0571250335
• ISBN 13: 9780571250332
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240