Jean Genet, French playwright, novelist and poet, turned the experiences in his life amongst pimps, whores, thugs and other fellow social outcasts into a poetic literature, with an honesty and explicitness unprecedented at the time. Widely considered an outstanding and unique figure in French literature, Genet wrote five novels between 1942 and 1947, now being republished by Faber & Faber in beautiful new paperback editions.

Querelle of Brest is widely considered to be Jean Genet’s most accomplished novel, which was made into a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1982. Querelle, a young sailor at large in the port of Brest, is an object of illicit desire to his diary-keeping superior officer, Lieutenant Seblon. He is coveted, too, by corrupt policeman Mario. He gives himself freely both to brothel-keeper Madame Lysiane and to her husband. But Querelle is a thief and a murderer – not a man to be trusted or trifled with …