Our Lady of the Flowers

The shattering novel of underground life the New York Times called a cry of rapture and horror . . . the purest lyrical genius.
Jean Genet’s debut novel Our Lady of the Flowers, which is often considered to be his masterpiece, was written entirely in the solitude of a prison cell. A semi- autobiographical account of one man’s journey through the Paris demi-monde, dubbed the epic of masturbation by no less a figure than Jean-Paul Sartre, the novel’s exceptional value lies in its exquisite ambiguity.