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• Querelle of Brest
  Set in the French port town of Brest, bisexual anti-hero Georges Querelle is a young sailor lusted after by his superior officer, by a local corrupt policeman and by the madam of a brothel. But Querelle is also a thief and a serial killer. ‘Querelle of Brest’ by Jean Genet (1910-1986) was first published anonymously in 1947 in a limited edition and illustrated with a series of homoerotic and sexually explicit line drawings by Jean Cocteau. It was prosecuted in France on grounds of indecency in 1954 but cleared in 1956. This edition from 1966 marks its first translation into English by Gregory Streatham. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film, ‘Querelle’ (1982), is an adaptation of the novel. Genet himself was dishonorably discharged from the French Foreign Legion and imprisoned for committing ‘lewd’ (homosexual) acts.