num_pages: 240
description: 'His memories are notmemories; they are exact but sacred; he speaks about his life like an evangelist, as wonderstruck witness. When Edouard, the novelist in Gide's The Counterfeiters, writes the journal of his novel, he is no longer fictitious. But Genet the novelist, speaking of Genet the thief, is more of a thief than a thief; the thief and his double are alike sacred. Thus, there comes into being that new object; a mythology of the myth (like the blues song that was called The Birth of the Blues); behind the first myth - the Thief, Murder, the Beggar, the Homosexual - we discover the reflective myths; the poet, the saint, the double, art. Nothing but myths, then: a Genet with a Genet stuffing, like the prunes of Tours. If, however, you are able to see at the seam the thin line separating the enveloping myth from the enveloped myth, you will discover the truth, which is terrifying. That is why I do not fear to call this book, the most beautiful that Genet has written, the Dichtung and Wahrheit of homosexuality.' Jean-Paul Sartre
language: English
title: The thief's journal
titlecomplete: The thief's journal
genres: Literature, 20th Century, LGBT, Queer, Novels, Gay, French Literature, Fiction, Classics, France
ratings_count: 4292
places: Spain, Antwerp, Belgium, Barcelona, Catalonia
publisher: Faber and Faber