Jean Genet wrote his first novel, Our Lady of the Flowers, in prison. The book was noticed and highly appreciated by such literary masters as Sartre, Celine, Nabokov, Burroughs, Mauriac. Like subsequent generations of readers, they saw in Genet’s work not shockingness, but utmost honesty, they heard a pure and sincere intonation coming from the heart and the cry of a tormented soul. The best features of Genet's creativity were reflected in the works written for the theater. Tragedy here is closely intertwined with everyday life, romanticism with vulgar rudeness, flights of fancy with authenticity. The plays of Jean Genet have been on the best stages of the world for many decades.