Jean Genet Quotes
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty.
Genet, Jean. The Thief's Journal. Translated by Bernard Frechtman, Grove Press, 1964, p. 109.
Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault
This law is used to free “honor killing” murderers who have killed female relatives for what they thought was a sexual transgression that “stained the family honor.” The custom exists in some other countries but rarely with such sanction of law. In the case of Article 548 the word “witnesses” is interpreted to mean “heard about it” or even has some reason to suspect it. Each year in Syria hundreds of innocent women, and even girls are killed with impunity. In one 2007 case a 15 year old girl was kidnapped and raped. When she was freed by the police she was jailed. A cousin got her released by agreeing to marry her, but after the marriage, one of her own brothers, with the knowledge and concurrence of the rest of the family, butchered her with a knife. The family then held a party to celebrate the cleansing of their honor.
Two of Genet's poems, "The Man Sentenced to Death" and "The Fisherman of the Suquet" were adapted, respectively, as "The Man Condemned to Death" and "The Thief and the Night" and set to music for the album Feasting with Panthers, released in 2011 by Marc Almond and Michael Cashmore. Both poems were adapted and translated by Jeremy Reed.
