French Literature Reviews - 2026

Br. Brami, Miracle de Jean Genet
Other Literary Studies

Brigitte Brami, Miracle de Jean Genet

Paris: L'Harmattan, coll. "L'écarlate", 2014.

• EAN 9782343040035.
• 198 p.
• Price 19EUR

Publisher's overview:

Unclassifiable and disturbing, Miracle de Jean Genet is no unidentified flying object. It is an unconfined exegesis, free from the usual academic conventions. It is a long poem written by an enamored captive as eccentric as she is erudite; it is an immediate literary bomb, much like Jean Cocteau referred to the "Genet bomb" regarding the author of Miracle of the Rose. Le Miracle de Jean Genet is the miracle of poetry that shatters all worn-out paradigms, blowing apart any and all forms of surveillance, including that of thought itself.

This exegesis consists of 3 major parts:

The Theatre of Power

The Power of the Theatre

and

The Miracle of Poetry

It also includes an Epilogue:

To and Fro in the Desert,

a (short) bibliography, and concludes with appendices.

About the author: Brigitte Brami was born in 1964 in Tunis and lives in Paris. Following the publication of a poetry collection, La Lune verte, then obtaining a postgraduate master's degree (Master 2) in performing arts, and doctoral studies in French literature and civilization, the author first gained widespread attention in 2011 with the bookstore success of a short book recounting her first imprisonment at Fleury-Mérogis – from June 18 to November 29, 2008 – titled La Prison ruinée. A specialist in the work of Jean Genet since 1995, she celebrates here the miracle of his poetry. It was during her second imprisonment at the MAF – from November 22, 2013, to May 14, 2014 – that she finalized the corrections for Miracle de Jean Genet.

Jean Genet occupies a singular position in twentieth-century French literature, renowned for transmuting marginality, criminality, and imprisonment into a radical aesthetic project. His oeuvre bridges the avant-garde traditions of theatre and lyric poetry, challenging conventional hierarchies of morality and taste. Within this broader landscape, critical commentary on Genet has frequently oscillated between sociological readings of his life and formalist analyses of his linguistic subversion. The tradition of writerly criticism—whereby authors engage with peers or predecessors outside strictly academic protocols—has a distinguished lineage in French letters, often yielding deeply personal yet illuminating encounters with difficult texts.

Brigitte Brami's study, Miracle de Jean Genet, consists of three major parts: The Theatre of Power, The Power of the Theatre, and The Miracle of Poetry, in addition to an epilogue titled To and Fro in the Desert, a short bibliography, and appendices. The author has been a specialist in the work of Jean Genet since 1995. Readers interested in contemporary critical approaches to Genet's work may find it relevant.