Jean Genet

Jean Genet (1910–1986) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist who began as a vagabond, petty criminal, and social outcast, spending much of his youth in reform schools and prisons.[1][2] While incarcerated, he started writing acclaimed works like *Our Lady of the Flowers* (1943) and *Miracle of the Rose* (1946), transforming themes of crime, eroticism, and homosexuality into poetic visions that made him a key figure in avant-garde theater.[1][2][3] In 1948, facing a life sentence for repeated theft, he was pardoned after interventions by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others.[3][4]