Black Panther Party and Jean Genet

As a new generation reckons with racial inequity on a global scale, Pamela A. Pears presents an in-depth consideration of Jean Genet’s involvement with and advocacy for the Black Panther Party, constructing a space where politics and poetry intertwine.Through a comprehensive analysis of Genet’s work with and on behalf of the Black Panthers, Pears focuses on understanding the literary, aesthetic, and eventually political importance of Genet’s Black Panther Party writings and speeches. For Genet, the BPP represents a poetic revolution, a theme he returns to again and again throughout his speeches, articles, and in his final book, Un captif amoureux (Prisoner of Love). The author argues that the aesthetic qualities Genet associates with political revolution allow readers to reimagine his writings about the Black Panther Party through the lens of art. Ultimately, The Black Panther Party and Jean Genet: Written in Black and White asserts politics and poetry can coincide, art can be advocacy, and true revolutionaries can move on from symbolic words to real action.