For this and other misdemeanors, including repeated acts of vagrancy, he was sent at the age of 15 to Mettray Penal Colony where he was detained between 2 September 1926 and 1 March 1929.
After returning to Paris in 1937, Genet was in and out of prison through a series of arrests for theft, use of false papers, vagabondage, lewd acts, and other offences.
In prison Genet wrote his first poem, "Le condamné à mort", which he had printed at his own cost, and the novel Our Lady of the Flowers (1944).
By 1949, Genet had completed five novels, three plays, and numerous poems, many controversial for their explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality.
In an interview with Edward de Grazia, professor of law and First Amendment lawyer, Genet discusses the time he went through Canada for the Chicago congress.
[3] In 1970, the Black Panthers invited him to the United States, where he stayed for three months giving lectures, attended the trial of their leader, Huey Newton, and published articles in their journals.
Genet also supported Angela Davis and George Jackson, as well as Michel Foucault and Daniel Defert's Prison Information Group.
[citation needed] Genet expresses his solidarity with the Red Army Faction (RAF) of Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, in the article "Violence et brutalité", published in Le Monde, 1977.
He told the interviewer controversial but not surprising details of his life such as the fact that he disliked France so much that he was rooting for the Germans when the Nazis invaded Paris.
Genet developed throat cancer and was found dead at Jack's Hotel in Paris on 15 April 1986 where his photograph and books remain.
He celebrates a beauty in evil, emphasizes his singularity, raises violent criminals to icons, and enjoys the specificity of homosexual gesture and coding and the depiction of scenes of betrayal.
Our Lady of the Flowers (Notre Dame des Fleurs 1943) is a journey through the prison underworld, featuring a fictionalized alter-ego named Divine, usually referred to in the feminine.
Funeral Rites (1949) is a story of love and betrayal across political divides, written for the narrator's lover, Jean Decarnin, killed by the Germans in WWII.
[6] Social identities are parodied and shown to involve complex layering through manipulation of the dramatic fiction and its inherent potential for theatricality and role-play.
The original cast featured James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou and Charles Gordone.
Genet is also credited as co-director of the West German television documentary Am Anfang war der Dieb (In the Beginning was the Thief) (1984), along with his co-stars Hans Neuenfels and François Bondy.
The Balcony (1963), directed by Joseph Strick, starred Shelley Winters as Madame Irma, Peter Falk, Lee Grant and Leonard Nimoy.
Genet made an appearance by proxy in the pop charts when David Bowie released his 1972 hit single "The Jean Genie".