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| Genet by Giacometti |
Tahar Ben Jelloun has known Jean Genet in the last ten years of his life. Here we are far from the mythical image of the writer Jean Genet sulfur and unrepentant thug, young, rebellious, out of prison, writing sensual and precise, but as almost mystical, incantatory and elegiac, as in the long poem "sentenced to death."
The portrait by Tahar Ben Jelloun brush touches is a man who spent the last years of his life defending the cause of Palestine and all those who had to time almost no one else supports.
If the life of Jean Genet is still poorly known, the last ten years of his life are still more: that is known today that he discovered in 1982 camps Sabra and Shatila few days after the atrocities, the bodies still in place, he tried to fight in defense of immigrants and to defend men and women rejected by all and put on the bench because of the company called terrorists?
However, the latter position, like the one he took in 1971 for the cause of black people by announcing that, for their defense, it could kill the whites, some startling, and it seems that the words had passed his thinking at a time and that the kick given to the institutions in place and passivity room was too harsh and too violent exasperation, at least in words. Tahar Ben Jelloun about excessive words spoke of "subversive lucidity," the term seems very nice for an author whose writings also burn with an intensity of solar ...
passion for writing, or at least the need to write seems to have shifted during those years and we see to paint the portrait of a man alone, living from day to day in a great count, without attachment or goods from one hotel to another, elusive, once France, another in Morocco or elsewhere, eating soft foods as having almost no teeth, clinging to a few male figures even more interested and interesting, attacked by a throat cancer, forgotten and abandoned the world of letters! It should be noted that he did nothing to work on his "image" as a writer, Genet is beyond it, more in impulsiveness, brilliance and singing love! But he still had something he had to sing, because his great love Abdullah committed suicide in 1964, leaving only after nine years of shared life, alone and somewhat dry in its inspiration.
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| Genet Giacometti |
Tahar Ben Jelloun insists repeatedly on this side disconcerting Genet, quoting: " never speak again of my books I wrote out of prison, not to save the company, I saved my skin by applying myself as a good school, that's all. "and further by speaking of him " He was not interested writers. Anyway, when I met him he hated talking about literature, poetry, or even language . "and also" He would not be a writer at the bedside of his work, the defendant, have to promote it. He refused to don the costume of the author released from prison by Sartre and Cocteau, to play the martyr, the homosexual, the thief and rebel . "
It will not be surprised to learn that he attended and spoke only very rarely those who had done so much to release him from prison and avoid going in the concentration camps Nazis in December 1943. Similarly, Genet never mentioned either in the late sixties, as in the seventies and early 80s of the gay movement! Genet, who must be without doubt the most beautiful pages of love between men, has totally turned away from any involvement at this level: "... he accepted never be mixed with the movements or gay rights associations in France and elsewhere. It was not his fight. Only the occupied Palestine, to the point that nothing else existed . "
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| Tomb J Genet Morocco |
Jean Genet is never where one might expect, the eternal rebel, somewhat vengeful and fun to make fun of France Giscard d'Estaing of France or the eldest daughter of the Church, that without doubt the hypocrisy and the one that put him in prison, marking forever, and who had killed so many beautiful boys around him like Maurice Pilorge to whom he dedicated his poem sentenced to death.
Did he just use the people? Was it capable of recognition and friendship? It would be tempting to say yes and no, so its image defies definition, Tahar Ben Jelloun, quoting, is already a beginning of explanation to the "Genet," with filigree taste of betrayal bonus " friendship, brotherhood, solidarity ... these are words, is a joke, it means nothing, only love has meaning, the rest is that generality and blabla. "
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| Maurice Pilorge sentenced to death and who dedicated his poem Genet |
Finally add that, if it is so free that man wanted to be buried outside France he disliked, Morocco, in a corner of land of a cemetery English facing the sea, and he kept in his heart throughout his life a concept outside the norm, as rooted and seems to come straight from the classical Greek culture, namely: " Only what is true is beautiful, and if something is beautiful because it is true .
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| Cocteau drawing excerpt from White Paper |
Notes:
If you live in Nice or 06 you will find at the bookstore Massena in Nice at the beginning of the street Gioffredo , a booth devoted to books and all of Genet advice from a real publisher. S ite : library Massena Nice
On Tahar Ben Jelloun: site writer Tahar Ben Jelloun
Helen Martin sings sentenced to death video on Youtube
Etienne Daho sings sentenced to death video on Youtube
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