Volume 1, Number 4 · October 17, 1963
The Genius of Jean Genet
By Lionel Abel
Our Lady of the Flowers
by Jean Genet, translated by Bernard Frechtman
Grove Press, 256 pp., $6.50
It was from Sartre that I first heard of Jean Genet. This was some years back, in 1947, if I remember rightly. Sartre was visiting New York, and the editors of Partisan Review asked me to a luncheon for him. For most of the luncheon not much was said, mainly, I think, because of the language difficulty—our French was labored and uncertain, and Sartre did not know English at all; then too, at the start, Sartre wanted to feel out what we, the Americans, were like—especially what our attitude was to him; and we, for our part, were not at all sure about the existentialist views he had proclaimed, or what his philosophy could mean in this country, or to us. Anyway, the conversation went haltingly until I said something about Camus, who was already enjoying a great vogue here; Sartre responded swiftly: 'Camus is a very fine writer, but France has many other fine writers. Camus is not a great writer, not a genius.' He added, 'There is only one genius in France today.' Who was that, we wanted to know. Sartre's answer was: 'Jean Genet.'
Review, 3909 words
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