FROM THE AUTHOR OF A BOY'S OWN STORY AND THE FAREWELL SYMPHONY

'A superb introduction to the great novelist and playwright, vagabond, thief and convict, and to the brutal childhood from which he mined his remarkable vision' J G Ballard, Books of the Year, Sunday Times

Interviewing lovers, friends, publishers and acquaintances, Edmund White draws from material, letters (a number published here for the first time) and other original sources to explore the perverse extremes of Jean Genet's life and writing. Separating the fact from the mythology which was fostered by Genet himself, White's portrait is a deftly painted celebration of French Literature's most modern rogue.