Prisoner of Love

by Jean Genet, Edmund White (Introduction), Barbara Bray (Translator)

One of the most celebrated French literary figures of the century, Jean Genet died in 1986, renowned worldwide for such works as A Thief's Journal, The Blacks, The Screens, and Our Lady of the Flowers. Genet had published little in almost 25 years, but two days before his death, he corrected proofs for a major new book, Un Captif amoureux. His account of these final years features an introduction by Genet biographer Edmund White.

Genres: Fiction, France, Queer, French Literature, Classics, LGBT, Politics

399 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Jean Genet was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His work, much of it considered scandalous when it first appeared, is now placed among the classics of modern literature and has been translated and performed throughout the world.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

I’ve been chilled by history grown sepia. My heart has been ruthlessly broken by a world gone wrong. This hybrid memoir recounts Genet spending time with the Palestinians in the the early 1970s as well as 1980s. He alludes to his time in Syria as part of the French military and brackets all of the above with his engagements with the Black Panthers. Thus it is a confession of defiance and protest, one drenched in the sensual and brocaded in sumptuous prose.

Reading about Genet meeting Arafat I couldn’t help but think of that luncheon Genet had with Faulkner.



I read this for all the wrong reasons. I’m not sure how anyone can pay attention and not collapse in despair?

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1970, Jean Genet, armed with a letter of safe transit from Arafat himself, visited the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. He stayed two years. He left in a hurry, but returned in 1984. It was then he started to write this, this, this......what is this? It is not a fiction, certainly not a novel. It's not a history; I had to look elsewhere for chronology and facts. It's not an argument; he damns everyone. At times it read like a billet-doux, but the subject of his ardor will never get to read it. It's self-indulgent enough to be memoir-ish, I suppose, but surely there's a better category. Maybe, oh, how about 'experimental journalism'? How Sean Penn!

That's actually not an unfair comparison. There's plenty of self-indulgence. I mean, he keeps asking rhetorically why he went there. Yet easily half the book is about how beautiful he finds the young fedayeen, with special emphasis on the eroticism of their thighs. He proudly proclaims, "I'm a pederast!" And he keeps detailing his time with the Black Panthers, trying I'm sure to draw some parallel, but nevertheless describing in detail the conspicuous bulge in a Panther's pants.*

We get it, Jean. And we also get that you want to rub your finger in the reader's eye.

That said, sometimes we all need a finger in the eye. Or, as Genet put it, sometimes "a touch of garlic helps."

Of course, you may miss the poetry if you've taken sides:

The State of Israel is a bruise, a contusion that lingers on the shoulder of Islam ...

Or you might think he just wanted to start a fight:

If you're against Israel you're not an enemy or an opponent--you're a terrorist.**

Or this, showing his cynicism isn't one-sided:

"How did a family get to be a Leading Family?"
"By genuinely descending from Ali, or by being clever enough to make people think so. Do you think Europe has a monopoly in sham genealogies?" ....
"So it's not certain your descent is legitimate?"
"Oh, Monsieur Genet--fancy you talking to me about legitimacy! Who dare say any man's mother was faithful to her husband?"

His look-around was not without historical lesson:

Right back as far as you can go there were alliances with Crusaders; new kings; brigands among the younger sons of the minor nobility; improper solicitation of legacies; brutal plunder legalized by forged seals of golden or bull's-blood wax. As for the Crusaders themselves, they created new sovereigns. overlords and privileges; they married the daughters of descendants of the prophet, inherited the wealth of Byzantium, tolerated slavery under the Ottomans.

So why did he go there? Maybe it was sex, or some other adventurous gene. Perhaps we should take him at his suggestion, that he, a rebel, needs to champion other rebels, black or Palestinian.

I know this: this very imperfect book will stay with me for a long, long time.

________________________________
*An annoyance: in describing the nature of race relations in America, Genet insists on talking about 'The Blacks'. How Donald Trump! Although, of course, Genet wouldn't see that. But -- wait, where's my soapbox? -- to me, if you refer to any group, and maybe especially African-Americans, as THE ___________, then it sounds like something you might want to put a fence around.

**He says more provocative things, which I won't quote here. But he talks about Chatila (sp) with a profound sadness, so you get the point.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 5 out of 5]

I probably haven't written an adequate review of a Genet bk yet. This was his last bk & it has a stunning maturity to it. The back cover blurb calls it "a controversial account of the last decades of his life that translates his experience with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Black Panthers into a meditation on power, territoriality, and the nature of the outsider." "[C]ontroversial"? "[C]ontroversial" w/ whom? Genet had an extremely incisive intellect. If I were to divide his bks up into 3 types, "Prisoner of Love" wd stand alone as the 3rd. The novels, the plays, this. I really don't think I can ever do a Genet bk justice. I 'randomly' open to page 149 wch in turn leads me back to 148. Take this passage:

"My whole life was made up of unimportant trifles blown up into acts of daring.

When I saw that my life was a sort of intaglio or relief in reverse, its hollows became as terrible as abysses. In the process known as damascening the patterns are engraved on a steel plate and inlaid with gold. In me there is no gold.

Being abandoned and left to be brought up as an orphan was a birth that was different from but not any worse than most. Childhood among the peasants whose cows I tended was much the same as any other childhood. My youth as a thief and prostitute was like that of all who steal or prostitute themselves, either in fact or in dream. My visible life was nothing but carefully masked pretenses. Prisons I found rather motherly - more so than the dangerous streets of Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona. In jail I ran no risk of getting killed or dying of hunger; and the corridors were at once the most erotic and the most restful places I've ever known.

The few months I spent in the United States with the Black Panthers are another example of how my life and my books have been misinterpreted. The Panthers saw me as a rebel - unless there was a parallel between us that none of us suspected. For their movement was a shifting dream about the doings of Whites, a poetical revolt, an 'act', rather than a real attempt at radical change.

Once these thoughts were admitted, others followed. If my life was really hollow although it was seen in relief; if the Black Movement was regarded as a sort of impersonation both by America and by me; and if I entered into as simply and naïvely as I've described and was accepted without demur - then it was because I was recognized as a natural sham.

And when the Palestinians invited me to go and stay in Palestine, in other words in a fiction, weren't they too more or less openly recognizing me as a natural sham? Even if I risked annihilation by being present at actions of theirs which were only shams, wasn't I already non-existent because of my own hollow non-life?"

Whew! & that's not even 2 complete pages!! Perhaps "controversial" isn't such a bad word choice after all. If Genet is a "sham" then what is this seemingly soul-baring passage? A sham w/in a sham? A Cretan saying "All Cretans are liars"?! To me, even being able to write the above passage is an act of great heroism. For him to've lived a life such as to make him find prisons "rather motherly" is, in itself, for him to've lead a life I'm greatly relieved to've missed. Then again, for him to be so free of conventional expectations of how to live as to find prisons "rather motherly" shows an extraordinary strength of character.

Do I agree w/ him about the Black Panthers being not "a real attempt at radical change"? No, I don't. Just their free food programs alone are too important to me. But who am I to say? Genet lived w/ Panthers, I've only read about them. I don't recall if Genet ever gives anyone credit for REALLY working toward radical change. Have I? Perhaps the answer here is as yes-and-no as w/ the Panthers. Radical change might result in radical destabilization - wch can mean even more misery than most people already have. As such, symbolic action, "'act'"ing, is a gentler way of promoting change that doesn't have to be violent. Symbolic action can mean getting people used to the need for justice enuf to accept its happening w/o extreme societal destabilization. But even the word "radical" is suspect here. Does it mean back to roots? Or does it mean dramatically changing?

At any rate, my musings in the last paragraph don't do Genet justice. Genet wrote an entire bk, I'm only trying to write a capsule review.. & failing.. If Genet was a sham as a person, he was no sham as a writer!! Perhaps being a "sham" in the sense he presents it is exactly what makes him so astoundingly great. The paragraph that introduces the above quoted passage begins:

"A chicken, boat, bird, dart or aeroplane such as schoolboys make out of bits of paper - if you unfold them carefully they become a page from a newspaper or a blank sheet of paper again. For a long time I'd been vaguely uneasy, but I was amazed when I realized that my life - I mean the events of my life, spread out flat in front of me - was nothing but a blank sheet of paper which I'd managed to fold into something different."

Be that as it may, how many people can make such folds w/ such astounding vision? Very, very few. It seems to me that most people just leave their lives "a blank sheet". Genet took his & turned it into a philosophical drama of great depth & learning, he reported from places in the mind & in the world most of us are content to never personally visit. & I have the utmost respect for him for that.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had never read anything like this.
In this mysterious account of the years spent among Palestinian fighters in 70s and 80s, there is no story, no linear reflection on the politics of the Palestinian resistance, history or even the men that Genet (lovingly, so lovingly) writes about. It yanked me along its lyrical ramblings from start to finish, falling increasingly deeper into a passionate fever dream, a luminous hallucination induced by scorching thirst under the desert sun. Genet's writing is utterly nomadic and digressive; the sooner you let go of any urge to somehow ground it with some consistent logic, the more you can hope to catch the blessing. Page upon page oozing with love, agitation, rebellion, tender rumination and passionate dedication to the Palestinian cause, all weaved into a fierce refusal to be bound by the trappings of identity and language. It opens a gash of hope in the most calcified of dejected hearts. It's so beautiful.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not a particularly easy-breezy read, but interesting enough for me to want to power through. This is a memoir that does not follow any linear pattern; instead it covers different years, from Genet's time living in a Palestinian refugee camp for a couple years in the early seventies, to time in Beirut during the Israeli invasion in the mid eighties. He talked to fedayeen (militant fighters) and Black Panthers and was unapologetically pro-Palestinian.

Reading this book right now has felt timely. It wasn't my intention when I picked it up - in fact, I didn't even know this book was about Genet's politics - but once I got into it and so much of what I was reading was mirroring things I've been reading in the news lately, I found myself wondering if Genet would still have taken the same stance today or if he might have felt differently. There's a lot of history here that pre-dates me, you, Genet, pretty much everyone, and there are a lot of emotions driving each side of the Israeli/Palestinian divide.

Genet started writing this memoir ten years after his initial time spent in the refugee camps and he worked on this up until his death. The memoir was published posthumously, so one wonders if it was as complete as he would have liked. I also can't help but wonder the veracity of some of his anecdotes for he says throughout in different ways that the image of something is not necessarily the reality of the thing, something I am fond of pointing out to people to piss them off (or when they piss me off, rather). Genet admits that his reflections were at times somewhat romantic, which is okay. His experiences were his own and he could do with them what he wished. His memoir is one more side of a very complicated story and I will not dare to say he was right or wrong.

[David M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm of the opinion that Genet's two greatest books are his first and last - Our Lady of the Flowers and Prisoner of Love, separated by more than forty years.

No, Genet didn't really mellow with age. And yet these pages overflow with the wisdom of an old man. He achieves a certain critical distance from the mythology of his youth. He's no longer trying to shock you. There is significantly less masturbation here than in his other works. Desire is sublimated into camaraderie and struggle. This book is his most honest and committed effort to engage with the world outside his head. All the same the sheer strangeness of him comes across pure and beautiful as ever.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a teenager, when I was tearing rapaciously through the literary masterpieces Jean Genet wrote in the 40s, I was most taken w/ QUERELLE, the novel from that period which would appear to be the least declarative about any ostensible roots in autobiography. THE THIEF'S JOURNAL and the prison novels seemed messier. They were less clearly defined projects from a formal standpoint; they delivered less familiar rewards. In my twenties I read a collection of Genet's political essays, many focused on The Black Panther movement and the Palestinian resistance, enterprises w/ which he had spent some time embedded. Here was a writer quite distinct from the novelist and playwright I had known in my teens. These were brisk and polemical pieces, clearly delineated and put to seemingly guileless political service. PRISONER is something else again. It would be far too simple (maybe the right word is simply 'incorrect') to suggest that it serves as a synthesis of the literary and polemical Genets. This is clearly a novel written (in the late 80s) in a manner that can only ever find superficial analogue in those of the 40s. And though the subject of the novel is certainly, at least in part, the filiation Genet feels for the Palestinian fedayeen w/ whom he spent two years of his life, and who remained in his thoughts up to his death, this is far from a jeremiad or manifesto. I feel like it is important to frame this book to any prospective reader as something that could be said to boarder on journalism, although that does the breadth of the thing scant service. Genet as narrator is unambiguously himself, and the memories he is dealing w/ are real ones. It is important to note that this book was written more than a decade after those original two years Genet spent w/ the fedayeen, and that during the time he was so embedded he took nary a single note. This is steadfastly a book of memory. And memory is implicitly as much its subject as filiation between outsiders (Genet clearly connected both w/ the Black Panthers and the fedayeen because these groups found themselves violently at odds w/ the geopolitical contexts in which they found themselves). I would say that PRISONER is a Bergsonian novel. It genuinely needs to be called kaleidoscopic, in that it deals w/ how we remember: in interlocking fragments that are ever in the process of spontaneously rearranging themselves. PRISONER is fragmented and nonlinear, to an aggressive extent, and more than once the existential integrity of past events are questioned to the extent that it is conceded that they might well have been dreamed. It is impossible to assess this novel without acknowledging that its writer was well-aware of his own imminent death. This is a "life flashing before my eyes" proposition, and PRISONER is a novel that is flashing. It is a very human novel, humble though ambitious (but not as ambitious, perhaps, as living the events herein recounted in the first place). What is perhaps most striking about it is its gentility. It would seem counterintuitive that history this violent and irreconcilable could be repurposed to serve as a vehicle for the attainment of some late-in-the-game tranquility. But there you have it. And that admiring blurb on the back from Edward Said: that ain't no small thing.

[أحمد شاكر · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب صعب. وهذا لصعوبة أسلوب جينيه وكثرة استرسالاته واشاراته. بدأ جينيه تأليف هذا الكتاب في العام 1983، بعد 14 سنة من مغادرته مخيمات الفدائيين الفلسطينيين بالأردن (يسميها جينيه فترة حضانة)، كان قد أمضى هناك (ما يقرب من عامين)، مسجلا ذكرياته ومشاهداته لأحداث الثورة الفلسطينية، وما يتعلق بها من أحداث بارزة كأحداث مخيم الوحدات، ومجازر صبرا وشاتيلا، محاولا فهم معنى هذه القضية/الثورة، ومقارنتها بانتفاضة الفهود السود في أميركا.
المترجم بذل مجهودا جبارا لإخراج تلك الصورة بهذا الشكل. قرأت لجينيه 4 كتب: يوميات لص، شعائر الجنازة، البارافانات، أسير عاشق، وكان هذا هو الأفضل من ناحية الترجمة. والأسوأ كان يوميات لص (ترجمة أحمد عمر هاشم، إصدار شرقيات)..

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jean Genet's last book and in some ways his most passionate one. His love for the Black Panthers and the Palestines goes beyond politics into something sexual and quite dangerous. Maybe my favorite of his books. Genet was one of a kind - one can't even out do him with the mixture of passion, sexuality and the joy of being in the wrong place at the right time.

[Meema · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can you remember a time of television news? There was a scene that was often repeated in TV news in those times, an Arab woman beating her chest in mourning and exasperation after the loss of another- son , brother, daughter, lover, father or neighbor. My initial reaction as I was finishing this incredible book was similar to the emotions invoked by those scenes -of loss, anger, grief, sadness, of love and joy, of triumph and self-fulfillment.

I know. I must start at the beginning.

Jean Genet came at me from many different directions this year(2018). From Patti Smith to Arundhati Roy, everywhere I found a reference to this writer. A little research informed me the list went so far as Edward Said and Jean-Paul Sartre himself.

I received a used copy of Prisoner of Love soon enough. Genet's last published book and an admirably difficult book to read. On the face, it is simple enough,a French writer living in the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan between 1970 and 1972 and chronicles of his stay there. But it is non chronological, with partial conversations appearing at one juncture and the rest many pages later, it has events from different times and places and is based on memories and dialogue and is full of musings.

I used to think the only way the actual impact of historical events on individual lives can be understood, is by reading fiction as it examines the events from an individual perspective in a specific context of time and space and not as an over- simplified statistical figure among millions who died or fought or migrated at a given time. But then there was this book.

Jean Genet, a forever outsider, first unwittingly and then perhaps by choice , found many kindred spirits at the camp in Baqa'a Refugee camp in Jordan in 1972.They were driven out there by Israeli forces and were facing two enemies, the Jordanian King and Israeli army at the same time. They were living in tents and reliant on food trucks for subsistence. Jean Genet arrived in the midst of this, armed with a letter from Yasser Arafat himself permitting him to stay with them.

We find Genet was an old French man that could start outrageous conversations with the aide of his broken Arabic and a translator anytime and anywhere. Almost all the people he seem to have met were unique and special. It is also possible that is how people are in general too when you are looking for it from the right angle. The book is written as a compilation of these conversations, memories of these conversations and reflections of the writer stemming from the same.

It is difficult to maintain this as a simple book of memoirs because it is replete with politics of the Arab peninsula, history of shameful colonial exploits of European powers all over the world and more specifically near and what was then Palestine, the convoluted past of the Jews, commentary on the complicated tightrope hung on the masts of nationalism, religion and entitlement to a state.

Genet is precise and scathing in describing the luxury suites at European hotels rented out by Arab leaders to hold "talks" or Yassir Arafat(not real name by the way) and the PLO's awareness of the importance of having a presence in western media of their cause. He is equally candid in describing the innocence and ignorance of the youth that have signed up as Fedeyeen army to free their land from occupation. The affectionate eloquence with which the courage and sensitivity of these soldiers that are frequently aware of their fatal fate and sometimes even the futility of their endeavours, is deeply affecting. Some are very aware of who the real enemy is , that it is, within them, the Arabs need to have peace first before defying Israel or the US. They read the Communist Manifesto and the Red Book and on more than one occasion they reject the existence of God. There is a very lucid observation from a Palestinian lady who inform Genet that they are the real Jews becasue they did not leave when the Romans invaded and later converted to Islam. The current perpetrators are actually their stateless cousins.

One of the great triumph of this book is the humanization of Palestinians. For when they are not training, they are taking a stroll with Jean, joking around with a friend or teasing each other about their respective bride to be. There are Ivy League educated Arabs that have flown back to do the right thing as there are housewives from middle America who saw the news of a bombing of their ancestral land and packed their bags and got on a plane the next day.There are two French boys, both called Guy, that eventually die in one of the wars and are buried there now, that are possibly there because of the May '68 events in Paris, but they are there nevertheless.

Throughout the book Jean asks himself why he is there andwhat he is doing among these people. He tries to answer it in many different ways, sometimes recognizing that the answer is buried deep inside him at some obscure place, in his past or his vision of the world he wants to live in. There is an event between Jean and a young Fedeyee named Hamza that comes close to answering this enigma. He stays a night at Hamza and his mother's and sleeps in Hamza's room as Hamza leaves for the night. He travels back 14 years later in 1982, in a mission to find mother and son, he motherless at seven months, he a Godless homosexual, who perhaps felt a Mother Mary that night in 1972. By the end of the book he does indeed confirm finding the mother and son in his heart and ponders if he had created them in his mind.

Everything in this book actually happened. So he says. An artist write this book through the eyes of a man. My heart is a concoction of love and devotion for this book, all the people in it and its writer.

[Kathleen]

WOW. Really good. Hard to read though; i put it down several months ago and haven't picked it up since; i will at some point but...

The introduction to this book, not by the author but by i-don't-know-who, got me super psyched to read it. Then i read the translator's note...

The translator's note basically says "hey man - don't blame me if this book is weird. #1, the author died before he finished the final edits, and as he started out writing it as an extremely experimental novel (with pages in tic-tac-toe formation for example), and only later decided to make the structure at least physically linear, it was still in a state of what most - including me - would say is a state of disarray. #2, this dude is just weird! #3, you should all know by now that translation is an approximate art. Come on people!"

Given all that, along with the bookmark in the borrowed book at a point _quite_ early on in the thing, i was a bit apprehensive. However, so far (i'm about 100 pages into it, it's abouut 300 pages?), the structure hasn't bothered me with it's lack of linearity or with it's wont to must about the place of memory and writer and representation.

Also, given that i'm in jordan right now, the book provides some really interesting information about how palestinians (and maybe jordanians) viewed Jordan's actions in the early '70s (particularly Black September - that's what this book is focusing on, or rather it is focusing on the reaction to Black September). Since it usually takes me an entire year to read a history book (if i get through it at all), i'm picking up interesting tidbits i probably wouldn't otherwise from here...

[Nour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished. This book was a journey for me. Oftentimes I would set it aside knowing that I am not ready to grasp the enormity of Jean Genet's writing. Not quite a memoir, Genet delves into an exquisite portrayal of his lived experience among Palestinian revolutionaries. There's a sense of hurry in the book, and considering Genet was himself dying, perhaps the hurried portrait that Genet paints is reflected in his writing as one memory bounces off of the next. It may have taken me a year to read, but definitely worth it.

[Helmi Chikaoui]

لم يكن جينيه أحد أهم الناثرين في تاريخ الأدب الفرنسي فقط، بل كان الأكثر عداءً للمركزية الغربية الاستعمارية، ولفرنسا على وجه التحديد؛ البلد التي نبذته، ووسمته بـ "اللقيط". وإزاء حالات السأم التي اختبرها مبكراً، عاش حياة اللصوصية والتشرد، وكان عادة مطارداً من جانب الشرطة بسبب سرقاته التي لم تتوقف حتى بعد أن حقق شهرة أدبية كبيرة، حيث كان يرى لصوصيته "نضالاً ضد شرور المجتمع" الذي تبرأ منه، ومن خلال تتبع المسيرة الحياتية لصاحب "يوميات لص" نرى أنها كانت بمثابة معاداة شرسة لكل ما يمت للنظام الاجتماعي بصلة.
في ما بعد سيأخذ هذا التمرد لدى جون، شكلاً سياسياً ثورياً عبر انضمامه لبعض الحركات الثورية، وانحيازه الواضح للمجتمعات المنبوذة والمضطهدة من جانب "الإمبريالية العالمية" و"المركزية الغربية"، حيث ناصر الحركة اليسارية الألمانية (بادر ماينهوف)، ثم انضم إلى حزب "الفهود السود" في أمريكا، قبل أن يختتم هذه الرحلة النضالية بانضمامه إلى الفدائيين الفلسطينيين في عام 1970 وأصبح اسمه الحركي «الملازم علي»
كان أول لقاء لجان جينيه بالقضية الفلسطينية عام 1968 في تونس، حين أطلعه نادل الفندق على بعض قصائد الشعر العربي المهداة إلى فدائيي حركة فتح، لكنها لم تُعجبه، فيما بهره جمال الخط العربي. لكن كان لكلمة "فدائي" وقع خاص على أذنه، إذ التمعت هذه الكلمة في خياله، وأصبحت كالغواية التي تسحبه إلى عالمها، حتى وجد نفسه بين الفدائيين الفلسطينيين في مخيمات الأردن في البقعة، الوحدات، الحسين، ومخيمي غزة وإربد.
تلقى جينيه دعوة من رئيس منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية ياسر عرفات للتواجد بين الفدائيين لثمانية أيام، ليجد نفسه وقد أتم عامين بينهم
وصفها جينيه بأنّها «المدّة الأكثر إبهاجاً في حياته» ، فوجوده بين المقاتلين الفلسطينيين- بحسب تعبيره- أعاد إليه إحساسه بالحياة، بعد أن بات يشعر بالسأم، وعلى مستوى أعمق، كان سبباً لتحولات جذرية في حياته، وفي النهاية ساهمت هذه التجربة على اكتشافه لمناطق مجهولة في ذاته لم يكن قد اقترب منها خلال سنوات عمره الـ62.
أصبح الشعب الفلسطيني في مُقدمة اهتمامات الكاتب. شعر نحو الفلسطينيين برابط عاطفيّ حقيقيّ، ووجد ذاته بين أبناء هذا الشعب الذي فقد أرضه، ويقول الباحث الأمريكي بجامعة ميامي رالف هيندلز، الذي أطر هذا اللقاء، إن “اليتيم الذي كانه جان جينيه وجد في القضية الفلسطينية دفق الحنان، لقد كانت أمه، لقد أعجب بصور الأمهات الفلسطينيات المناضلات“.
حين يُسأل عن سبب مساعدته للفلسطينيين يعلّق «يا له من سؤال غبي، هم ساعدوني كي أحيا».
يتسأل إدورد سعيد " ولكن هل يعد حبه للفلسطينيين بمثابة نوع من الاستشراق المقلوب أو المتفجر، أم هو طراز آخر من هيام استعماري معدل بشباب داكنى البشرة على نحو ينطق بالوسامة؟ لقد أطلق جينيه العنان لحبه للعرب لكي يكون منحاه في الاقتراب منهم والالتحام بهم بيد أنه حين كان معهم، وحين كتب عنهم، لم تكن هناك أية دلالة على أنه كان يصبو إلى مركز متميز ليبدو كأب أبيض طيب، إلا أنه من ناحية أخرى لم يحاول ألبتة أن يبدو في صورة ابن من أبناء وطن من يتحالف معهم، أو أن يظهر في هيئة شخص يخالف حقيقته. والمؤكد أنه ما من دليل إطلاقاً على أنه كان يعتمد على معارف أو خبرات استعمارية سابقة لكي يسترشد بها ، بل لم يلجأ أبداً في كتاباته أو في أحاديثه إلى تلك الكليشيهات المتداولة عن عادات العرب أو عقليتهم أو ماضيهم القبلي، وهي مظاهر كان بإمكانه استخدامها في تأويل ما كان يراه أو يشعر به. ومهما كان أسلوب اتصالاته المباشرة الأولى بالعرب (يشير عمله أسير عاشق إلى أن أول علاقة حب ربطته بواحد من العرب كانت منذ نصف قرن، حين كان جندياً في الثامنة عشرة يخدم في دمشق)؛ فقد دخل في المحيط العربي وعاش فيه، ليس كمنقب عن الجديد والغريب، ولكن كإنسان يرى للعرب واقعا وحضورا يمتعانه، ويجد راحته في معيتهم، حتى وإن كان مختلفا عنهم وظل على اختلافه هذا. وفي سياق التوجه الاستشراقي السائد الذي سيطر - مشرعاً ومفصلاً - على ما يكاد يكون مجمل البنية المعرفية الغربية وتجاربها مع العالم العربي والإسلامي"
قبل نحو أسبوعين من وفاته، سلّم جينيه الذي كان يصارع السّرطان، حقيبتيه لمحاميه رولان دوما الذي احتفظ بهما لمدة 43 عاماً. كان آخر أعمال جينيه كتاب يجمع بين الرواية والسيرة الذاتية عن القضيّة الفلسطينيّة بعنوان «أسير عاشق». أراد من خلال هذا الكتاب، إعادة إحياء صورة الفدائي الفلسطيني بعدما شعر بأنّ القضيّة الفلسطينيّة بدأت تنحرف عن مسارها الثوري، = نحو أولويّة إنشاء دولة على جزء من أرض فلسطين. وقال عن الكتاب في إحدى المقابلات: «عندما كتبت «أسير عاشق»، كان العديد من الرّجال الذين عرفتهم في المعسكرات قد قُتلوا، وكنت أنا أحتضر بسبب المرض. أردتُ من خلال الكتاب أن أكتب وصفاً جميلاً لتلك اللحظة ولأولئك الرجال، وأن أعيد تأكيد التِزامي، بعد عشر سنوات، ليس فقط للثورة الفلسطينيّة ولكن للتمرّد عموماً»
كان أكثر ما جذبه إلي الفلسطينيين تحولهم من منفيين ولا جئين إلي ثوريين مصممين على استرجاع هويتهم وأرضهم » كان معجبا جدا برمز الفدائي ذاك ، الذي يغامر بحياته من أجل قضيته ، فيذهب تحت جنح الظلام لإلقاء قنابل أو زراعة ألغام في إسرائيل . رحلة قد يعود منها ويكون كمن عاود الصعود من الجحيم ، أو قد لا يعود ‌. وجان جينيه الذي كان يكره الغرب ويؤيد حركات التحرر في العالم أجمع ، كان يجد في إسرائيل صورة للغرب المزروع في العالم العربي . وهو يقول في هذا الصدد مخاطبا الفلسطينيين : إسرائيل هي الغرب مزروعا في بلادكم ، لذلك فإن عدالة القضية في حالة المقاومة الفلسطينية بديهية بالنسبة إلي ، ولم يتوان جينيه في وصف إسرائيل بـبؤرة الرأسمالية الغربية.
يشمل الكتاب الفترة من عام (1984-1986) التي أمضاها في ضيافة الفدائيين الفلسطينيين، وكذلك الجولات التي قام بها في الفترة نفسها أو في فترات لاحقة في: "المغرب ولبنان وسوريا".
وكانت نتيجة هذه الاستعادة، صدور كتابه "أسير عاشق" الذي يضم رؤيته الخاصة لهذه التجربة، وكذلك رؤية رفاقه من الفدائيين لقضية بلادهم، متتبعاً صيرورة التمرد الفلسطيني منذ بدايات توهجه واندفاعه نحو الثورة وتحرير الأرض، مروراً بالمؤامرات والخيانات التي تعرضت لها حركات المقاومة الفلسطينية التي وصلت إلى ذروتها في أحداث أيلول الأسود، حتى خفوتها بل وموتها، حين حل "أطفال الحجارة" محل الفدائيين، الذين تركوا أسلحتهم بعد أن تخلت عنهم الأقطار العربية، ومن ثم تقلصت أحلامهم من تحرير الأرض عبر "الثورة والتمرد" إلى حل الدولتين عبر "المؤسسات وعمليات التفاوض".
تلك التي رآها جان غير ملائمة لشعبٍ طُرد من أرضه، ليحل محله شعب آخر ادعى أن أصله هو الأصل، كتب "إن الثورة الفلسطينية كانت تكف عن تشكيل نضال عادي من أجل أرض مغتصبة وتتحول إلى نضال ميتافيزيقي، بسبب ما فرضته إسرائيل على العالم من أساطير دينية مزجتها مع الوقت بالسلطة، لتؤسس دولتها العبرية على الأرض العربية"
جان جينيه كان مُخلصاً للثورة وحركات التمرد أو ما يُعرف بـ"تحرير الأرض"، وبرغم احتفائه بالفدائيين، وبالدور البطولي لحركة فتح، إلا أنه وجه إلى الحركة ومنظمة التحرير انتقادات لاذعة؛ يقول: "عندما عُدت في سبتمبر 1971 حول عجلون، كنتُ في البدء أتأمل ببلاهة انهيار المقاومة الفلسطينية، وإذا ما فتشت عن أسباب، فلم أجد سوى التعليمات الصارمة للمقاتلين بأن يكونوا في حالة دفاعية أكثر منها هجومية. وهنا أصبح فعل القتل نائياً وبعيداً ومغلفاً بطقوسية معقدة، كان هدفها يبدو لي متمثلاً في التخفيف من ثقل القتل. وإذا تأملنا أكثر فيمكننا أن نرى أن الطبيعة الحنونة المرهفة للفدائيين الفلسطينيين، لم تكن متسقة، مع مُحتل أسس دولة مدججة بالأسلحة، وتحظى بتأييد جد قوي من جانب أمريكا وأوروبا. عندما عُدت مرة ثانية أو ثالثة لا أتذكر في أثناء مجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا، لم أجد أحداً من أصدقائي الفدائيين؛ كانوا قد ماتوا أو جُرحوا، أو اعتقلوا أو هربوا. فقد كانت حياتهم وأعمارهم خفيفة وقصيرة كعُمر الحركة الذين انتموا إليها. فقد كنتُ أرى ظلال الموت وهي تحوم دائماً فوق رؤوسهم".
من بين كل صور الفدائيين والمقاتلين في المخيمات، حُفرت صورة الفدائي حمزة وأمه في أعماق جان جينيه، بل يقول إنها كل ما تبقى له من الثورة الفلسطينية، وظلت تطارده لأربعة عشر عاماً، حتى أنه كان يعود إلى إربد كثيراً (حيث التقى بهما)، ليبحث عنهما، فقد كان متشككاً من وجودها ومن حدوث تلك الليلة التي قضاها في سرير حمزة، فيما كانت الأم تُقدم له بحنان بالغ الطعام والشراب، وكأنها تُطعم من بعيد الابن الذي ذهب للدفاع عن أرضه.
ربما كانت هذه الصورة التي أضفى عليها جينيه سماتٍ أسطوريةً دينية، وتُحيل إلى السيدة العذراء والمسيح، تُفجر بداخله شوقاً جارفاً لهذه العاطفة الأمومية التي حُرم منها طوال حياته، وربما كانت تعويضاً له عن هذا الحرمان، جاءته بعد عمرٍ طويل من أمٍ فلسطينية.
هذا نص يحكي فيه الحالة والضرورة التي تَشكّل بها الفدائي الفلسطيني، كما شاهدهم وكما عاش بينهم وشاركهم يوميّاتهم في قواعدهم، ينهي النص قائلاً «غاية هذه الصور هو فهم أفضل للفلسطينيين، وتحديداً الفدائيين، وإن أردنا فعلاً فهمهم، ليست هنالك غير طريقة واحدة: النضال معهم، النضال مثلهم».
لكن لم يكن كل ما كتبه جينيه فلسطينياً هو شهادته عن مجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا وكتابه الأخير، بل سبقتها نصوص عدّة جُمعت وغيرها في كتاب صدر عن دار غاييمار كذلك بعنوان «العدو المُعلَن» وهي نصوص ومقابلات مُختارة تعود للفترة ما بين 1970 و1982، تناولت مواضيع عدّة تخص التزام جينيه السياسي، منها نص بعنوان «الفلسطينيون» كُتب في شهر ماي عام 1971 كتعليق على صور لفلسطينيين في المخيّمات الأردنية ضمن مجلّة «زوم» المتخصّصة بالفوتوغرافي، كتب فيه عن الفدائيين والثورة الفلسطينية وأعدائها بما فيها الرجعية العربية محدّداً النظام الأردني، حكى فيه عن مشاكل أوروبا مع اليهود وإلقائها على الشعب الفلسطيني، قال بأن الفلسطينيين حملوا السلاح للعودة إلى بلادهم التي طُردوا منها، عودة قد تحتاج لثورة تعم البلاد العربيّة كي تتحقّق.
نصوص أخرى يحويها الكتاب كـ «نساء جبل حسين» الذي يحكي فيه عن أربع نساء فلسطينيات مسنّات يعددن الشاي على الفحم، مرّ بقربهن فعزمنه وجرى حديث بينهم. نص آخر يحكي فيه عن حبّه وإعجابه بالفدائيين وتحليله لهذه الظاهرة نفسياً واجتماعياً وسياسياً، عنوَنه بـ «بالقرب من عجلون» وقد كتبه إثر تنقله بين قواعد الفدائيين في عجلون بين عامي 1970و1971 حيث «عشنا تحت الخيم وتحت الشجر». يلحقه في الكتاب «أربع ساعات في شاتيلا» ثم لقاء صحافي طويل أجري أثناء مشاركته في فيينا في إحياء الذكرى الأولى لمجزرة صبرا وشاتيلا. ركّز الحوار على علاقة جينيه بالفلسطينيين وقضيّتهم وأسباب دعمه لهم، يقول رداً على سؤال بأنّه «لن أستطيع مساعدتهم كثيراً لأنّ رجلاً في الثالثة والسبعين من عمره لن يستطيع كثيراً مساعدة شعب فتيّ وثائر، لكن في النهاية، وضمن الحدود التي أستطيع بها مساعدتهم، سأفعل».

[Okuyandervismuradinaermis]

Kitabı anlamaya çalışırken kitap bitti. Okuması gerçekten zordu. Karmaşık bir dille yazmış sanki. Kronolojik bir düzenin olmaması okumamı zorlaştırdı. Ama yazari anlama isteğim kitabin sonunu getirtti bana. Puan veresim de gelmedi, bu kitap benim için gri bölge.

[Alyssa Pheobus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm recommending Prisoner of Love to everyone I know, including my mom, but especially to people who make things and think seriously about the ethics of representation. It's essentially a memoir, Genet's last book, written after a long, largely silent period of distancing himself from older work that brought him fame. At the same time it's an account of his long-term involvement with the Palestinian Revolution; a struggle in which he could never wholly participate. The book is amazing because he constantly and performatively interrogates his own ability to tell this story (or any story) and language, both in the air and on the page, becomes one prison among others. But Genet-the-former-criminal has also famously stated (and represented in his gorgeous early film, Chant d'amour) that prisons were the places where he discovered the greatest erotic possibility. His deep fascination with the erotic in everyday life, hugely palpable in his descriptions of instances of repression and release in the militant culture of the fedayeen, makes this book unexpectedly and achingly sexy. Throughout the book Genet also takes some interesting detours into the story of his friendship with the Black Panthers, and makes some boldy poetic connections between their movement and the Palestinian Revolution. I think I came away with a better understanding of the philosophy and ethics of both movements, but I also respect Genet's commitment to a radical ambivalence toward both.

[Tasos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Με παραπλάνησε ο τίτλος και νόμιζα πως θα είναι άλλο ένα queer μανιφέστο του συγγραφέα, εδώ όμως πρόκειται για ένα χρονικό τη�� διένεξης Ισραήλ-Παλαιστίνης όπως την έζησε ο Genet κατά τις επισκέψεις του στην περιοχή σε διάρκεια 15 χρόνων. Για όποιον δε γνωρίζει τις ιστορικές λεπτομέρειες (όπως εγώ) η ανάγνωση είναι γολγοθάς, αφού η αφήγηση κάθε άλλο παρά ιστορική και γραμμική είναι. Ένα συνονθύλευμα τόπων, προσώπων και γεγονότων μέσα από μια αμιγώς προσωπική γραφή, όπως τη διαμορφώνει η μνήμη χρόνια μετά, για ένα κράτος κι έναν λαό που, όπως κι ο συγγραφέας, πάλευαν απελπισμένα για μια θέση στον κόσμο. Ο Genet πέθανε πριν το ολοκληρώσει, γεγονός κάπως ειρωνικό αν σκεφτεί κανείς της πορεία της παλαιστινιακής επανάστασης.

[Mai Abdeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Prisoner of Love some years ago...I longed to live those years to the point that I decided to re-read it in attempt to live the moments all over again,,,to walk around the fedayeen base, to read their love letters, capture the determination look in the eyes of "young lions" to smell the camp, it's dreams and fear...to draw Palestine with a refugee eye...could it be! Am I trapped in this book! Am I the prisoner of love!

[Czarny Pies · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Un captif amoureux" est un reportage dans le genre du "Journalisme gonzo" ("Gonzo Journalism" ) qui a occupé une très grande place dans la vie culture américaine entre les années 1970 et le début du 21ième siècle. C'est Hunter S. Thompson qui a inventé le terme et qui est devenu l'auteur le plus célèbre de l'école. Norman Mailer est un autre écrivain très célèbre qui a fait partie aussi du mouvement. Finalement, il y avait Jean Genet. Dans "Miami and the Siege of Chicago" Mailer signale qu'il a rencontré Jean Genet qui travaillait pour la revue" Esquire" au congrès de la parti Démocrate en 1968 et le décrit comme un commentateur d'importance. Le problème pour le lecteur francais est le "journalisme gonzo" qui est très peu connu en dehors de l'Amérique du nord est un drôle bête. Un Européen aura beaucoup du mal à comprendre où s'en va Genet dans "Un captif amoureux".
Le but d'un article ou livre gonzo n'est pas d'analyser une actualité mais de raconter le parcours du journaliste qui y est présente. Ainsi "Fear and Loathing at the Kentucky Derby" ne décrit pas une course de chevaux mais raconte l'historie de la consommation des drogues et d'autres folies de l'auteur Hunter S. Thompson lors de l'événement. Dans "The Armies of the Night" de Mailer ne parle pas d'une manifestation contre la guerre du Viet Nam qui a eu lieu à Washington en octobre 1967 mais des gestes effectués par Mailer pendant la manifestation. (Notamment il a raté la toilette quand il pissait et a fini par arrosé le plancher au Pentagon.)
"Un captif amoureux" nous livre les impressions qui sont arrivés à Jean Genet pendant trois séjours en Palestine. Il parle de la "consolation de la masturbation" et de la beauté des jeunes mâles palestiniens mais il ne présente pas l'histoire du mouvement du PLO. Ses commentaires sur les enjeux du conflit sont sibyllins au mieux.
Le problèmes de base est que Genet veut être le poète lauréate des damnés de la terre plutôt que l'analyste d'un seule conflit. Il parle des "Zengakuren au Japon, les Gardes Rouges en Chine, les révoltes étudiantes à Berkeley, les Panthères noires, Mai 1968 et les Palestiniens." (p. 442) À cette liste on peut ajouter aussi la FLN d'Algérie, les gais brimés et les transsexuels. Genet pleure tous les victimes mais il n'explique rien.
Dans un moment de lucidité Genet révèle qu'il a été bien accueilli par les Palestiniens même s'ils "avaient reconnu on moi spontané simulateur... un simulacre" (p. 206).
"Un captif amoureux" est l'œuvre d'un des grands écrivains francais du vingtième siècle mais il vous laisse sur votre faim. Comme un bon journaliste gonzo il se représente bien dans un décor mais il ne dit rien sur le décor.

[Zeyneb Vildan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çok kopuk ve aşırı akışkan bir zihinden anılar okuyoruz. Aslında çok okuyamadım, dağıldım sürekli ama 5 yıldız veriyorum çünkü FREE PALESTINE.

[Leonardo]

Tan pronto la nación comienza a conformarse como un Estado soberano, sus funciones progresistas se desvanecen. Jean Genet estaba encantado con el deseo revolucionario de las Panteras Negras y los Palestinos, pero reconoció que cuando se transformaran en naciones soberanas se terminarían sus cualidades revolucionarias. “El día que los palestinos se institucionalicen”, sostuvo, “ ya no estaré a su lado. El día que los Palestinos sean una nación como cualquier otra, ya no estaré allí”.

...sobre la experiencia de Genet con las Panteras Negras y los Palestinos, ver su novela final, Prisoners of Love.

Imperio Pág.86

[Miha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Should a book be considered good just because it is hard? I hated this book, but had to read it through for work. I hated the lack of structure and the lack of a fable as well as lengthy digressions.

Admittedly there are images and insights in there that will stick with me, but they are buried so deeply among the general ramblings that it hardly seems worth the read. If you are looking for an insight into Palestinian-Israeli conflict, look elsewhere.

[arnulfo.]

this is some dense reading. will tackle later. damn you genet.

[Pahail · Rating 4 out of 5]

"но сегодня, когда я слышу слово "палестинец", меня пробирает дрожь, я могу воскресить его в памяти, лишь вспомнив эту картину: могила, словно тень, расстеленная у ног солдата"

[Nina]

Dit was heel moeilijk

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genet reproduces the loose, associative nature of genuine human thinking and feeling in his form, and nonetheless it is still seen by some (cough cough a professor of Arabic lit -- Robyn Creswell) as frenetic, boring, uninspired, etc. At least I remember Creswell saying something to that effect at a comp. lit. party after I mentioned I'd started up the book. It's hard but beautiful the way, in the middle of reminiscences of time spent with the fedayeen, Genet sutures a paragraph of an image. We go from:

To write down [the words sacrifice, self-sacrificing, abnegation, altruism] as a tribute to someone who dared to live them, and live them to the point of dying for them, is indecent. Like the war memorials covered with easy tributes.

This is followed immediately by:

Parachutists are said to see the earth approaching with a speed that accelerates with the rate of their fall.

It seems random, it seems jarring, all until Genet makes clear, leading the reader by the hand, how the image casts just a little more light on the subject discussed just prior.

To write the word sacrifice, above all the sacrifice of your own life: seeing the world annihilated as the earth approaches to annihilate the parachutist. A man who sacrifices the one life he'll ever have deserves a tombstone of quiet and absence. One that will swallow up both him and anyone capable of naming him or the heroic act that brought about the ultimate silence.

This was written in the 80s but I think of Aaron Bushnell today and the prose still sparks.

Prisoner of Love is Jean Genet's recounting of the two years he spent in the early 70s with the Palestinians in the refugee camps in Jordan. The introductory biography the NYRB edition contains discloses that Genet was "abandoned by his mother at seven months,...raised in state institutions...and charged with his first crime at the age of ten." Eventually he was charged with a life sentence in prison. He was pardoned in 1948; he had started to write in prison and eventually France's literary stars noted him and advocated for his release. Genet wrote many books afterward, and Prisoner of Love was his last.

This book has a more feeling, human relationship to Palestinian resistance than any humanitarian image, especially those of today, seem to have. And it is all recounted by a Genet who, despite efforts to represent things truthfully (for the sake of the fighters who asked him to do so), never falters in his acknowledgement that all of it was the revolution as seen by him, not the revolution as it exists in itself...

I bought this book in 2022 after seeing it among a small, curated collection of texts in an exhibit by a Palestinian artist - it might've been Emily Jacir, but in any case was at Artspace New Haven while her film "Letter to a friend" was on. I took it to Berlin with me and got 2/3 of the way through before life pushed it back to the bookshelf. As beautiful as the prose is and as innovative the form may be, it is a difficult read - one you have to work for. There are also so many references, especially to French and Classical lit., that went right over my head, and which I had to treat as unknown vocabulary in an effort to keep up the flow of reading. All of this to say, it's a tough book - but the "dates read" show that already.

Prisoner of Love is really a masterpiece of documentary in my mind. It's like a radical film from the 60s or 70s transmuted to book form. It shows much; it makes you think about solidarity and what it looks like. You also see life, sensuality, the duplicity of people, sorrow. If you want to know more, the introduction to the NYRB edition says it better than I can. Let me know and I will send a pdf.

(P.S.: The NYRB edition is great, though my one complaint is that the book is narrow enough and the paper heavy enough that for long reading sessions, your thumbs begin to tire and you have to shift them all around the page to get better leverage but avoid the lines you're currently reading.)

[Jacques · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sentí que pasé tanto tiempo leyendo esto que ya no lo puedo reseñar como libro y lo tengo que reseñar como experiencia.

Es interesante, mucho. Genet fue un total personaje en sí mismo y como entreteje sus memorias con reflexiones sobre la vida, el tiempo, la subjetividad de la historia y la lucha me pareció genial.
Tiene partes que son bastante aburridas, escenas de la vida cotidiana y eso, y le sobran muchas páginas. Pero al final de cuentas termina generando esta sensación de que Genet no es un autor, sino un compañero de viaje. No es una narración, tú también lo estás viviendo.

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Del río al mar, Palestina libre será 🇵🇸

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

"One thing a book tries to do is show, beneath the disguise of words and causes and clothes and even grief, the skeleton and the skeleton dust to come. The author too, like those he speaks of, is dead."

A wild and imperfect and beautiful book. When Genet was dying of cancer, he refused pain-killers so he could be lucid enough to write this memoir of his time with the Black Panthers and the Palestinian fedayeen.

[jq · Rating 4 out of 5]

– C'est ton ami?
– Oui.
– Depuis quand sais-tu son départ?
– Il y a vingt minutes.
– Le linge, c'est le sien?
– Le sien et le mien. On doit être propres cette nuit.
– Tu est inquiet, Kassem?
– Angoissé. Je le serai jusqu'à son report, ou jusqu'à l'heure où il n'y a plus à espérer.
– Tu es un révolutionnaire et tu aimes à ce point M'hamed?
– Quand tu seras révolutionnaire tu comprendras. J'ai dix-neuf ans, j'aime la révolution, je me dévoue pour elle et j'espère le faire longtemps. Mais ici nous étions un peu au repos. Nous sommes révolutionnaires et humains. J'aime tous les feddayin et je t'aime aussi; mais sous les arbres, la nuit ou le jour, je peux choisir de donner mon amitié à l'un plus qu'aux autres du commando, ici je peux casser en deux, pas en seize une tablette de chocolat, en donner la moitié à qui je veux. Je choisis.
– Vous êtes tous des révolutionnaires mais tu en préfères un?
– Et tous palestiniens. Et je préfère Fatah. Toi, tu n'as jamais pensé que la révolution et amitié aillent ensemble?
– Moi si, mais tes chefs?
– S'ils sont révolutionnaires, ils sont comme moi, avec leurs préférences.
– Et l'amitié dont tu parles, tu oserais l'appeler amour?
– Oui. C'est de l'amour. En ce moment, à cette minute, tu crois que j'ai peur des mots? Amitié, amour? Une chose est vraie , s'il meurt cette nuit un trou sera toujours à côté de moi, un trou où je ne devrai jamais tomber. Mes chefs? À dix-sept ans ils m'ont trouvé assez raisonnable pour m'accepter dans Fatah. Fatah m'a gardé quand ma mère avait besoin de moi. À dix-neuf, ma raison est encore là. Révolutionnaire, aux moments du repos je me soumets à l'amitié qui repose aussi. Cette nuit je serai angoissé mais je ferai mon travail. Les gestes, tous, qu'il me faudra faire quand le descendrai au Jourdain, je les ai appris il y a deux ans et je les sais. Laisse-moi épingler mon dernier maillot de corps.
(144-145)

« Sais-tu pourquoi il est resté debout? me demanda Ferraj. Il ne pouvait pas s'asseoir. Le long de sa jambe, sous la galabieh, il garsait son fusil. Il va en Israël. Il tirera toutes ses balles, s'il a le temps, peut-être un Israélien crèvera vers minuit ou demain matin. » (242)

Alors que je songeais qu'à la mienne, la solitude de Moubarak, en quelque sorte, me sautait à la gorge. S'il portait avec arrogance sa couleur et ses cicatrices rituelles c'est qu'elles étaient la marque, ici, d'une singularité, donc sa solitude, qui ne cessait un peu qu'auprès de moi.
– Tu ne peux pas savoir à quel point ils me font chier avec une révolution qui leur rendra la petite maison, le petit jardin, les petits pots de fleurs, le petit cimetière, déjà réduits en poudre par les pelleteuses et les excavatrices israéliennes.
(322)

Une vielle Palestinienne m'avait dit: « Avoir été dangereux un millième de seconde, avoir été beau un millième de millième de seconde, être cela, cela ou heureux, ou n'importe quoi, puis se reposer, et quoi de plus? Nous sommes restés quelques minutes à Oslo? Peut-être? Occuper la Norvège seize ans nous aurions gelé le monde. On a été raisonnables. Et dangereux quelques seconds seulement. » (384)

Evidemment sous mon récit un autre pousse et voudrait venir au monde. (386)

Chaque femme dans les camps n'a le temps ni le goût de broder les célèbres robes palestiniennes ou les coussins dont la rareté de plus en plus désespère les dames des Grandes Familles. Si l'homme meurt, la femme prendra le fusil pas l'aiguille. Adieu coussins, maintenant brodés à la machine. (393)

Cette révolution si longtemps hors la loi, aspirait-elle à devenir loi dont le Ciel serait l'Europe? (609)

Une réalité est certainement hors de moi, existant par et pour elle-même. La révolution palestinienne vit, ne vivra que d'elle-même. (611)

Voici ce que m'expliqua Daoud:
– Deux hippies, les cheveux blonds et bouclés, parlant anglais, la nuit déjà venue, se tenant par le cou et par de longs baisers, s'approchèrent en riant, en titubant, des gardes postés au bas de l'escalier de Kamal Adnouan. Les deux gardes insultèrent les deux pédés scandaleux qui, avec une vitesse prouvant un entraînement très au point, sortirent un revolver, descendirent les gardes, montèrent vite l'escalier, pénétrèrent chez Kamal et le tuèrent. Une scène a peu près semblable se passa à la même heure chez Kamal Nasser et chez Abou Youssef.
(...) La légende ou les récits circonstanciés disent que six blonds furent choisis er peut-être ce choix et lui surtout fut difficile. Non que les blonds manquassent, au contraire, mais il fut attendre la pousse des cheveux, qu'ils aient une assez belle longueur afin de boucler les plus longs, qui descendraient sur les épaules et de couper en frange ceux qui ont tendance à tomber sur les yeux. Évidemment nous nous trouvons face aux commentateurs prétendant que chaque couple eut la tête rasée, style para mais coiffée d'une perruque dont les boucles descendaient le long du visage. Quoi qu'il en fût, tous acceptèrent cette idée de préparation: afin de rendre plausibles les caresses des jeunes hommes amoureux de l'un de l'autre, ils durent s'entraîner au baiser sur la bouche. Les muscles des membres et la souplesse des corps, l'agilité des jambes, l'innocence, l'apparence imberbe des visages, tout dût être mis au point, et surtout les voix féminines sans être de faussets.
(...) Les journaux du monde entier décrivirent cet assassinat que nul ne nomma terrorisme sur un territoire souverain. Il fut considéré comme l'un des Beaux-Arts, il mérita l'Ordre qui convenait, et qui fut décerné.
(...) Quel besoin avais-je de parler du massacre après avoir noté les cheveux longs et bouclés des soldats de la Saïka? Du récit de cette épisode qui lui fut rapporté, Daoud laissant transparaître une sorte d'admiration pour l'audace, la pureté du style, la réalisation si parfaite que le dessin révélait un grand artiste (...)
Six perruques blondes et bouclées, un peu de carmin aux lèvres et de noir aux yeux ne suffisent pour apporter dans les rues de Beyrouth ce désarroi dont certainement personne se douta. Le rire intérieur des travestis qui n'ont cessé de se sentir virils correspondait peut-être à la terreur des vrais travestis qui redoutent d'être découverts à cause de leurs voix papotant non comme celles des femmes mais qui se veulent indépendantes, comme leurs gestes d'ailleurs, des voix sans support. Au contraire de cela les six Israéliens bouclés ne devaient oublier qu'ils étaient des hommes, musclés afin de se battre, entraînés à tuer. Toute l'étrangeté de leur situation venait de la douceur, de la délicatesse féminine de leurs gestes qui, d'un moment á l'autre, avec précision, deviendraient gestes de tueurs, pas de tueuses. Ils surent s'embrasser langue contre langue, les têtes inclinées, sexe contre sexe, mais ces gestes étaient faciles et venaient tout de suite à l'esprit. Ce qui fut plus long dans l'entraînement et plus complexe, c'est la particulière délicatesse des doigts afin de relever un cheveu sur le front de l'aimé, de chasser d'une pichenette une bête à bon Dieu sur l'épaule de l'amant... Ces répétitions dans une rue d'Israël firent sans doute assez longues. Arranger un pli de l'écharpe, rire dans l'aigu et soudainement se débarrasser des oripeaux, redevenir le guerrier dont le but est de tuer. Et aller vraiment tuer, non comme au dernier acte d'un drame très applaudi, tuer et laisser des morts. Je me demande s'il n'est pas doux de se glisser dans la tendre féminité et difficile de s'en dépêtrer pour une action criminelle. (263-267)

[Aya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a unique book. I do not consider it a memoir, nor a description of a specific experience. It is more of various unrelated thoughts and feelings that were gathered in a book about a specific period of time and place, but which were related many times in the book to other events in other places in the world and different period of times. The book is unique for many reasons - for me at least: first of all, you can feel the honesty in the words of this book. Genet remembers his years with the Palestinian Fedayeen during the toughest period in Jordan, you feel how much he cares about them and how much he loves specific symbols of their lives. Second, this book talks about a period of time in Jordan which is not taught in history, not discussed (in Jordan at least at the time being) and which I think was exposed to many attempts to erase from memory.

However, because these thoughts are not organized, you feel the book is not focused. It takes you from one place to another and from a specific time to another, but not smoothly. Another point is that the language of the book/or the Arabic translation of it is not that good. There are too many mistakes in the book, but still, this does not take away the beauty of it.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's really nothing like his other, earlier novels through which he became famous. However, I wouldn't really have wanted to have read this without knowing that side of Genet, and having knowledge about the rest of his life. To actually understand Genet a bit helps to understand the power of this final work, which is mostly finished and unpolished. It's Genet's final statement to the world just before he died, and it encapsulates passion, it is passion. Genet is the most stunning writer I've ever discovered, and I read this after having first read all his other novels and plays only to be completely awestruck again in a way that I couldn't have predicted. This is Saint Genet's Bible and, honestly: it's beautiful, and very important