Querelle of Brest (Paladin Books) - Softcover

Jean Genet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0586086099 ISBN 13: 9780586086094

Publisher: Paladin, 1987

Synopsis

'The man who wears the uniform of a sailor is in no way pledged or bound to obey the rules of prudence...'. First published in 1947, revised for Gallimard in 1953, Querelle of Brest is widely considered to be Jean Genet's most accomplished novel, its renown further aided by Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film adaptation of 1982. Querelle, a young sailor at large in the port of Brest, is an object of illicit desire to his diary-keeping superior officer Lieutenant Seblon. He is coveted, too, by corrupt policeman Mario. He gives himself freely both to brothel-keeper Madame Lysiane and to her husband. But Querelle is a thief and a murderer - not a man to be trusted or trifled with. "Genet takes seriously the threat latent in sexuality, and drags us with him to a confrontation with the basest of angels." (Michael Levenson, Harper's).

About this title

About the Author

Jean Genet was born in Paris in 1910. An illegitimate child who never knew his parents, he was abandoned to the Public Assistance Authorities. He was ten when he was sent to a reformatory for stealing; thereafter he spent time in the prisons of nearly every country he visited in thirty years of prowling through the European underworld. With ten convictions for theft in France to his credit he was, the eleventh time, condemned to life imprisonment. Eventually he was granted a pardon by President Auriol as a result of appeals from France's leading artists and writers led by Jean Cocteau.$$$His first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, was written while he was in prison, followed by Miracle of the Rose, the autobiographical The Thief's Journal, Querelle of Brest and Funeral Rites. He wrote six plays: The Balcony, The Blacks, The Screens, The Maids, Deathwatch and Splendid's (the manuscript of which was rediscovered only in 1993). Jean Genet died in 1986.

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

About this edition

• Publisher: Paladin
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0586086099
• ISBN 13: 9780586086094
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 275