Arena

Episode 259: Saint Genet

November 12, 1985

Tonight Arena presents a unique interview with one of the great figures of 20th-century literature, Jean Genet. His first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, written in prison, moved Jean-Paul Sartre to declare him a saint and martyr. Genet's plays, including The Maids and The Balcony, revolutionised post-war theatre, and his novels, explicit and passionate celebrations of homosexual love, were widely banned. Now 75, Genet remains a self-declared outcast, unrepentant about his past as a thief and prostitute, still questioning society's expectations. In an impassioned outburst, he denounces even the interview itself as 'a piece of bad theatre' and turns the tables on his interrogators, asking them some uncomfortable Questions of his own.