French · 1910–1986
French novelist and playwright who transformed crime, homosexuality, and betrayal into literary sacrament. Abandoned at birth, raised in foster care, he spent his youth as thief and male prostitute before writing in prison. Sartre championed him; Cocteau got him pardoned. Our Lady of the Flowers, The Thief's Journal, and The Maids established a vision where abjection becomes sacred. His later plays—The Blacks, The Screens—addressed colonialism and revolution. He supported the Black Panthers and Palestinians, wrote until his death, and remains irreducible: criminal, saint, literary genius.