Journey Into a Secret Life: An imaginary biography of Jean Genet, poet and high priest of evil. "Revolt is something I allow myself", said Jean Genet in 1975. Born in Paris in 1910, raised and humiliated in an approved school, a pederast and thief who has been to prison 14 times and expelled from five European countries. His novels are ballads of poisonous beauty, his plays are murky rituals of oppression where each person acts out the role imposed upon him by the others.