Miracle of the Rose

“One of the greatest achievements of modern literature.” –Richard Howard

“A major achievement . . . . Genet transforms experiences of degradation into spiri­tual exercises and hoodlums into bearers of the majesty of love.” –Saturday Review

“This book recreates for the reader Genet’s magic world, one of dazzling beauty charged with novelty and excitement.” –Bettina Knapp

“Genet would have deserved international standing for this novel alone. . . . He succeeds to an amazing degree in creating poetry from the profoundest degradation.” –The Times (London)

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.