File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2001/heidegger.0103, message 94


Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:41:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Orpheus <cwduff-AT-alcor.concordia.ca>
Subject: Genet/Dost....



	Gary you were also asking about whether Jean Genet
had written about the Russian writer Dostoievski. He wrote one short
piece which can be found in L'Enemie Declare. White discusses
this piece briefly in his English bio. of Genet.

Other remarks about Sartre and Genet:
Mohamed Choukri - Genet in Tangie -tr. Paul Bowles/intor by WS
Burroughs,The Ecco Press New York 1973/74/ English.The book was
first printed in French and I wld. imagine Arabic. Choukri remained
a friend of Genet's for many years. Another very small limited
edition came out in French just a few years ago, and its
very interesting to see Choukri meeting Genet again. Genet is
much older and he congratulates Choukri on his book Pain Nu I think
it is called. Wait, its not another edition, but another book
completely and can fit in your hand almost; its about 12 uncut pages
small tiny press French style edition. Published after
the death of Genet.----- In the book written in Tangier, Genet
tells Choukri that "Without hesitating he replied:Naturally I agree.
Sartre read me the first hundred pages aloud, and then asked me
if I thought it was alright as it was, and if he should go on or
not." p. 9. There are other remarks as well. But I will let you
find them for yourself
--
There is also Bernard Moraly who wrote a french biography
of Genet which predates White's book by about 7 years.

I also believe that the last interview that Genet was to an
Arabic playright- Saadalah Wannous ;it was printed in AL Karmil, in 1986
in Arabic the year in which Genet died.It was then translated
back into French which I think was appropriate given Genet's stance
towards France and the French language which is not superior to other
languages and not more important or sacred no matter what anyone says.
Genet is buried in Morroco outside of French territory This was
as he wished.
--Arbaud Malgan wrote a book Jean Genet Qui etes vous -- LA Manufacture
INA of France issued this text in 1988. You can read this inter-view
with Genet in it if you wish. He speaks about his last bk. Prisoner
of Love in this interview. Its a very canny intereview. There are others
which might have interest to you as well.

Lastly, there is Genet A Chatila - Textes Reunis Par Jerome
Hankins - Edition Solin 1992. In it there is a truly
movng interview with Leila Shahid, Genet's lady friend of his
last years. She was there in Beirut with him in 1982.
She is naturally Palestinian. I suggest this interview as I would
offer a piece of jewlery to a lover or friend. I dont think one
can find one Genet but many. To paraphrase a chapter in Milles Pla
teau -- One or Many Genets
Genet is inescapable. There are also some fine interviews with
Angela Davis dating back to the 70's. Very Fine intereviews.
There is David Hilliard's second volume of memoirs coming out I believe
in the spring -- his account of Genet's time among the Black Panthers.
And by the way, do read the first one to grasp the reality
of the Black Panthers as narrated 30 years later.
I am disturbed by White's contexting of Genet in Beirut; he quotes
Thomas Friedman's account of Sabra and Shatila; why? I don't know,
But I will ask him if we ever meet. Why did he not use
Robert Fisk's account of the massacres and in this way the
readers would have had a  much better idea of where exactly
Genet was and why and what happened. Friedman is much to much of
an apologist for the State of Israle to give a true account of the
massacre and I think White was unfair to the memory of those
who died there[and those who still live there], as well as showing
insensitivity to Genet's politics. Perhaps White had to deal
with a publisher who was worried about things... I think White had
an enormous task when he undertook to write about Jean Genet.
I am thankful that he did what he did do even though I am critical
of this aspect of it. Portraying an artist is never easy, and to portray
Genet at all was a very courageous one. It is interesting because
White says that Genet would not have liked White; after says White, I am a
middle class man and Genet hated the middle class, I am academic
and Genet was not.-  I think that White's book was an act of love,
and acts of love are  never perfect. Read Moraly's book - an Israeli by
the way and comnbine with Saint Genet and White and all the other
interviews and portraits and texts and the era becomes more
clear itself, and Genet one man among many. Oh, yes, Genet
was angry at Sartre in later years, but that was because
Sartre did not have the same love affair with the Palestinians.
It's interesting that White does not discuss Genet's
feelings about Sartre's death, or his visiting the grave
of Sartre; One lovely remark White made in the introduction
the first English edition of Prisoner of Love - and subsequently
dropped in the second one is that Deleuze in a lecture compared
the book to the Bible, and Genet of course invokes Homer
many times, and had made reference to Homer as far back
as 76 in a long interview. and I already told you
that Derrida told a friend of mine at a conference in the summer
of 2000 at Cerisy France that he was hurt by the book. That is
interesting. Genet never ends, he is Genet Genesis.

More another day






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