The Thief's Journal

Jean Genet · 1910–1986 · France

Originally Journal du voleur (French) · translated by Bernard Frechtman

Why it matters

Genet recounts his years as a beggar, thief, and male prostitute across 1930s Europe as a defiant aesthetic credo. A confessional that turns abjection and betrayal into a kind of sainthood.

At a glance

Ornate, incantatory prose that inverts conventional morality without warning.