Recommendations
Books Like Journal du voleur by Jean Genet
The Thief's Journal — autobiography as the transformation of shame into beauty
Genet's 1949 autobiographical account of his years as a thief, beggar, and prostitute in Spain, Belgium, and Germany — the explicit program of the novels: the transformation of shame and criminality into beauty by choosing absolutely what society has condemned.
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Buy on AmazonNotre-Dame des Fleurs
by Jean Genet
The first and most radical novel (1943) — Journal du voleur is the autobiographical key to the fantasy world of Notre-Dame des Fleurs; reading the Journal reveals the real experiences behind the Montmartre fiction.
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Buy on AmazonMiracle de la rose
by Jean Genet
The second novel (1946) — the Mettray reform school and Fontevrault prison that the Journal also describes; the comparison between the autobiographical Journal and the lyrical-fictional Miracle de la rose gives the fullest picture of how Genet transforms experience into art.
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Buy on AmazonSaint Genet, comédien et martyr
by Jean-Paul Sartre
Sartre's 1952 existentialist account of Genet uses Journal du voleur extensively as the primary source — the existentialist analysis of the choice to be what society has called you is worked out through the explicit autobiographical account the Journal provides.
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Buy on AmazonLes Chants de Maldoror
by Comte de Lautréamont
The foundational transgressive text — the tradition of transforming criminality and transgression into lyrical beauty runs from Lautréamont through Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal to Genet; reading Maldoror alongside the Journal shows the tradition that Genet is inheriting.
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Buy on AmazonLes Fleurs du mal
by Charles Baudelaire
Baudelaire is the other founding figure — the poet who made sin and transgression the subject of French verse and who transformed them into beauty; the tradition from Les Fleurs du mal to Journal du voleur is the tradition of the aestheticization of the condemned.
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Buy on AmazonConfessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The founding text of French confessional autobiography (1782) — Rousseau's explicit self-accusation and self-justification is the formal ancestor of Genet's Journal; both confess to things that conventional morality condemns, but where Rousseau asks for forgiveness, Genet refuses to.
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Buy on AmazonHistoire de l'œil
by Georges Bataille
Bataille's transgressive fiction (1928) is the most important parallel in the French tradition — both Bataille and Genet treat transgression as sacred, both were published clandestinely before being recognized; reading the two works together gives the range of mid-century French transgressive writing.
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X and Alex Haley
The closest American parallel to Journal du voleur — the autobiography of a man who was a criminal before becoming a political and religious leader, who describes the criminal period without shame or apology; comparing the two gives the range of what confessional autobiography of the condemned can do.
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