The Tightrope Walker

The Tightrope Walker

"This is idle, clumsy advice I'm giving you. Nobody could follow it. But I wanted just that: to write about this art [tightrope walking] a poem whose heat would flush your cheeks. The idea was not to incrust you, but to inflame you." - Jean Genet

Before his death in Larache in 1986, Jean Genet taught his lover to reproduce the famous writer's signature, so that after his death the younger man could sell his documents and manuscripts successfully.

Genet's lover, Abdallah Bentaga, was a Moroccan tightrope walker. In the end, he died before Genet, a suicide.