[Based on E. White, Genet: A Biography. Knopf, 1993.]
March 1964 Genet’s long-time lover, Abdallah Bentaga, commits suicide; his death leaves Genet severely depressed. He destroys his literary manuscripts, writes a will, and at the end of 1967, also attempts to commit suicide.
November 1965 "The United States State Department refuses to give Genet a visa for reasons of sexual deviancy" (White, xxxv).
May 1968 Genet returns to Paris and participates in the notorious Mai
1968 student protests and worker strikes.
August 1968 Genet covers the Democratic National Convention for Esquire
and "is involved in demonstrations and protest meetings" (xxxvi). He had
entered the U.S. illegally through Canada.
January 1970 Genet participates, alongside Marguerite Duras, in a demonstration protesting the "living conditions of immigrant workers" (xxxvi).
February 1970 Following the arrest of the Black Panther members, two representatives for the group solicit Genet’s help. Although he is again denied a U.S. visa, he enters the country through Canada. He tours across the United States speaking to university audiences and the press in order to win public support for the Black Panthers.
May 1, 1970 In New Haven, he makes an important speech for the Black Panthers (later published in two parts entitled ‘Here and Now for Bobby Seale" and "May Day Speech"); however, he leaves the United States after being tracked down by U.S. immigration authorities.
July 1970 Genet writes the preface to George Jackson’s prison letters, entitled Soledad Brothers: The Prison Letters of George Jackson.
October 16, 1970 "Learning of the arrest of Angela Davis, Genet for the first time accepts speaking in front of television cameras and tapes a declaration called ‘Angela Davis Is at Your Mercy’ (White, xxxvii).
October 20, 1970 Following the events of ‘Black September’, Genet visits the Palestinian refugee camps. This trip was the first of many over the next two years.
November 1970 Genet meets Yasser Arafat (near Amman, Jordan), and he promises Arafat to record the "Palestinian tragedy" (xxxviii).
August 21, 1971 George Jackson is "killed in the prison yard the day before his trial" (xxxviii). Genet protests the murder of Jackson in an article entitled "America is Afraid," published in Le Nouvel Observateur.
December 1972 Genet "begins two years of active participation in demonstrations
in favour of North African immigrants" (xxxviii). He begins work on a book
about the Palestinians and the Black Panthers, later published as Prisoner
of Love.
May 1974 Genet supports François Mitterand, the Socialist party
candidate, for president.
September 1974 "Genet meets Mohammed El Katrani, his last companion, in Tangier" (xxxix).
November 11, 1979 "To protest against a bill proposed in Parliament which aimed to curtail the rights of immigrants, Genet grants an interview to Tahar Ben Jelloun [an important Moroccan writer], which is published in Le Monde" (xl).
September 1982 Genet "returns to the Near East with Leila Shahid, a young Palestinian militant. He is in Beirut at the moment the Lebanese capital is invaded by the Israeli army. At this time massacres are committed by the Christian militias in the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Shatila. He is one of the first Westerners to enter Shatila and, on the morning of September 19, discovers the area strewn with corpses. A few days later, he takes up his pen and writes the most important of his political articles, ‘Four Hours at Shatila’, published in January 1983 in the Journal of Palestine Studies" (xli).
July 1984 Returns to Jordan for the last time.
April 1986 Completes the final proofs for the publication of Prisoner of Love.
April 15, 1986 Genet dies in Paris. He is buried in an "old Spanish cemetery which overlooks the town of Larache, Morocco" (xlii).
May 1986 Prisoner of Love is published.
Questions to Consider when reading Prisoner of Love:
without a place in society. How is he also critical of the Palestinians,
especially the PLO?