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Illustrated portrait of Michaelis Andritch

A character in The Thief’s Journal

Michaelis Andritch

A street singer and lover who travels with Genet during their failed counterfeit-money scheme.

What they want in Genet’s retrospective narration

To find money, movement, companionship, and adventure within the precarious life he shares with Genet.

The book

Cover of The Thief’s Journal by Jean Genet
The Thief’s JournalJean Genet, 1949

Jean Genet turns theft, prisons, sex, betrayal, and wandering through Europe into a defiantly beautiful literary autobiography.

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At a glance

Met in
Brno
Key episode
Counterfeit Polish zlotys and arrest in Katowice

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Genet meets Michaelis in Brno. The street singer becomes his lover and traveling companion, joining a plan to circulate counterfeit Polish zlotys.

Their arrest in Katowice joins criminal partnership to erotic intimacy. Genet’s humiliation is sharpened because Michaelis witnesses it, making the episode important to the narrator’s effort to transform degradation into chosen identity.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • A street singerHis livelihood associates voice and performance with life on the road.
  • Graceful but masculineGenet remembers physical grace without turning him into the same overwhelming idol as Stilitano.
  • A traveling companionHe shares practical movement and risk with Genet rather than remaining a distant object of worship.
  • Witness to humiliationHis presence makes the degrading prison work emotionally sharper for the narrator.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

The counterfeiting plan fails and the men are imprisoned for roughly two months. The narrative later moves away without supplying a complete account of Michaelis’s later life.

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