French author and playwright. "Our Lady of the Flowers" was perhaps his most esteemed novel, "The Balcony" his play. A pickpocket, thief, and homosexual prostitute, Genet was lionized by Jean-Paul Sartre in a thick volume of literary criticism entitled "Saint Genet". Apparently, Jean-Paul felt that Genet lived his own philosophy of Being and Nothingness. I remember laughing all the way through "Saint Genet" and fondly think of it as one of the funniest things I have ever read.