Jean Genet

Jean Genet was born 19 December 1910 and spent his early years as a vagabond and petty criminal, drifting through Europe's margins. That life became the basis for his writing: novels like *Our Lady of the Flowers* and *The Thief's Journal* pulled from his own experience of prisons, hustling, and outcasts. He moved into theatre with plays including *The Maids*, *The Balcony*, and *The Screens*, works that broke open questions of power, ritual, and identity. By the time of his death on 15 April 1986, he'd become a major figure in French letters and a voice for the dispossessed.