Jean Genet was born the illegitimate son of a Parisian prostitute who orphaned him seven months later.
At the age of ten he was accused of stealing and, although innocent, he resolved to be a thief. At thirteen he became a ward of the state he began a life of crime and adventure. From the age of 15 to 18 Genet was in the Mettray penitentiary, a place of hard labor where a code of love, honor, gesture, and justice was enforced. He then joined the French Foreign Legion in Syria. After deserting he spent more periods in prison on counts of petty theft, begging, and homosexual prostitution.
By the age of 23 Genet was living in Spain, sleeping with a one-armed pimp, lice-ridden, and begging. This period became the basis for his novel The Thief's Journal.
Between 1930 and 1940 he wandered Europe and eventually found himself in Hilter's Germany, where he felt strangely out of place.
At 32, while in prison, he began his first manuscript, Our Lady of the Flowers. It was discovered and destroyed, and Genet rewrote it from memory. This handwritten manuscript was smuggled out of his cell and eventually came to the attention of Cocteau and Sartre, who vigorously lobbied for a pardon of Genet's life-sentence. More than 40 intellectuals petitioned the French government on Genet's behalf.
After five novels, and then silence for several years, Genet re-emerged as a playwright. He wrote a number of theatrical pieces which further established his success, beginning with the production of "The Maids," and followed by other classic plays: "The Blacks," "The Balcony," and "The Screens."
Genet wrote of the gay world without apology or explanation, revealing beauty in the harsh world in which his characters lived, loved, and died. He deeply felt a sense of solidarity with thieves and society's dispossessed.
In later life, Genet championed the cause of the Black Panthers in the United States and Palestinian soldiers in Jordan and Lebanon. His final work, The Prisoner of Love, is a record of his years spent with these two groups. He died on April 15th 1986.
All biographical facts taken from: http://www.leninimports.com/jean_genet.html#partone
