Jean Genet's suitcases, the mysterious exhibition at the Arab World Institute

[midroll]

You'll be able to take an almost exclusive look at the historical contents of these suitcases, which contain letters, correspondence, hotel bills, notes on everything and nothing, in bulk, on subjects important to him, such as homosexuality and cinema. But above all, we find traces of sixteen years spent with the Black Panthers and the Palestinians, from which emerges a mysterious manuscript, somewhere between literature and politics. A very secretive man, he gave up being a writer at the age of 50, but eventually continued to write, in spite of everything, about what marked his life.

In this jumble of torn-up newspaper clippings, writing paper and other materials, we retrace the life of a committed writer, through hitherto unknown manuscripts. After his death, "Un captif amoureux" was published, considered to be the greatest book by a Western author on the Palestinian struggle. In these suitcases, we glimpse some of his encounters with the Palestinian people, a subject of particular concern to him, with comments on Bruno Barbey's photographs taken between 1969 and 1971"with the eye of an objective witness", or poignant accounts of the massacres perpetrated.