num_pages: 128
description: Criminal Child offers the first English translation of a key early work by Jean Genet. In 1949 in the midst of a national debate about improving the French reform-school system a French radio station commissioned Genet to write about his experience as a juvenile delinquent. He sent back a piece about his youth that was a paean to prison instead of the expected horrifying expos. Revisiting the cruel hazing rituals that had accompanied his incarceration relishing the special argot spoken behind bars Genet wondered if regulating that strange other world wouldnt simply prevent future children from discovering their essentially criminal nature in the way that he had. The radio station chose not broadcast Genets views. Criminal Child appears here with a selection of Genets finest essays including his celebrated piece on the art of Alberto Giacometti.
language: English
title: The Criminal Child and Other Essays
publisher: NYRB Classics