Albert Camus, a French author of Algerian origin, is renowned for his exploration of the absurd and the human revolt against it. His works often grapple with themes of alienation, the search for meaning, and moral order in a godless world. Camus's prose is characterized by its purity, intensity, and rationality, reflecting his relentless ethical inquiry. His literary legacy lies in its urgent lessons on embracing absurdity with hope and refusing despair.
Featuring the most significant lectures and speeches of a Nobel Prize winner, this collection presents a fresh English translation by Quintin Hoare. It showcases the enduring impact of the author's ideas and insights, making it a vital resource for those interested in their influential thoughts and contributions. This marks the first time these important works are available in English, enriching the understanding of the author's legacy.
From 1935 until his death, Albert Camus kept a series of notebooks to sketch out ideas for future works, record snatches of conversations and excerpts from books he was reading, and jot down his reflections on death and the horror of war, his feelings about women and loneliness and art, and his appreciations for the Algerian sun and sea. These three volumes, now available together for the first time in paperback, include all entries made from the time when Camus was still completely unknown in Europe, until he was killed in an automobile accident in 1960, at the height of his creative powers. In 1957 he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. A spiritual and intellectual autobiography, Camus' Notebooks are invariably more concerned with what he felt than with what he did. It is intriguing for the reader to watch him seize and develop certain themes and ideas, discard others that at first seemed promising, and explore different types of experience. Although the Notebooks may have served Camus as a practice ground, the prose is of superior quality, which makes a short spontaneous vignette or a moment of sensuous beauty quickly captured on the page a small work of art.Here is a record of one of the most unusual minds of our time.
This collection features four thought-provoking masterworks by the Nobel Prize-winning author, presented in a new American translation by Ryan Bloom. It includes Camus's final versions of the plays, along with deleted scenes and alternate dialogue, making this the first time they are available in English. While renowned for his novels exploring absurdism, Camus found joy in the theater, calling it "one of the only places in the world I'm happy." After forming two troupes in Algeria, he moved to Paris, where he staged these original works between 1944-1949. Caligula, his first full-length play, explores the Roman emperor's grief over his sister Drusilla's death, raising existential questions about living in the face of time's relentless passage. The collection also includes The Misunderstanding, which delves into the complexities of longing for home versus the allure of elsewhere; The Just, which examines the ethical dilemmas surrounding political assassination; and State of Emergency, an allegorical piece featuring The Plague as a character, offering fresh insights into contemporary struggles with disease and authoritarianism. Together, these plays illuminate the depths of human experience and the moral dilemmas we face.
This final volume, recorded over the last nine years of his life, takes on the characteristics of a personal diary.--[book jacket].
Brings together a collection of the writer's novels, short stories, and essays, including "The Plague," a tale of survival and resilience in the face of a devastating epidemic, and "The Fall," in which a French lawyer makes an astonishing confession.
From 1935 until his death, Albert Camus kept a series of notebooks to sketch out ideas for future works, record snatches of conversations and excerpts from books he was reading, and jot down his reflections on death and the horror of war, his feelings about women and loneliness and art, and his appreciations for the Algerian sun and sea. These three volumes, now available together for the first time in paperback, include all entries made from the time when Camus was still completely unknown in Europe, until he was killed in an automobile accident in 1960, at the height of his creative powers. In 1957 he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. A spiritual and intellectual autobiography, Camus' Notebooks are invariably more concerned with what he felt than with what he did. It is intriguing for the reader to watch him seize and develop certain themes and ideas, discard others that at first seemed promising, and explore different types of experience. Although the Notebooks may have served Camus as a practice ground, the prose is of superior quality, which makes a short spontaneous vignette or a moment of sensuous beauty quickly captured on the page a small work of art.Here is a record of one of the most unusual minds of our time.
Originally published in French: Paris: Gallimard, 1958.
Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, 'The Myth of Sisyphus' transformed 20th century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning
This volume contains some of Camus' most powerful political writing as he reflects on moral responsibility and the role of the artist in the world. 'Letters to a German Friend' was Camus' first wartime intervention, written in 1943 in order 'to make our battle more effective'. 'Reflections on the Guillotine' is his impassioned polemic against the death penalty. And in his Nobel lecture, Camus argues against 'Art for art's sake' and brilliantly sets out his vision of the artist's responsibilities.