Norman Mailer: Works and Days

Jean Genet

French playwright and novelist (The Maids, The Balcony, The Blacks). Mailer's two-part Village Voice review of Genet's The Blacks (61.6) drew Lorraine Hansberry's 1 June Voice attack on Mailer's racial politics, which Mailer answered a week later (61.7).

Mailer’s two-part Village Voice review of Genet’s The Blacks — the play, not the book — ran on 11 May and 18 May 1961 (61.6). The review’s framing of the racial politics of Genet’s play drew an attack from Lorraine Hansberry in the Voice of 1 June, to which Mailer answered on 8 June (61.7). Part of the 61.6 review was later reprinted in The Presidential Papers (63.37).

Stub; to be expanded as later Mailer–Genet crossings are added.

Cite as: /people/jean-genet
Last updated: 2026-05-26