by Albert Camus Translated by Stuart Gilbert Original title: La Peste
There’s a kind of cold streak in Camus, an austere distance from the world that many trace to his family background, specifically his grandmother who he portrayed in a piece called Courage translated in his Youthful Writings. (more...)
by Albert Camus Translated by Justin O’Brien Original title: L’EXIL ET LA ROYAUME
The pellucid, icy night air of the Algerian desert cuts through the first story in this collection like a laser and sets the geographical agenda for many of the others. (more...)
by Albert Camus Translated by Justin O’Brien Original title: LA CHUTE
The Fall isn’t the subtlest of Camus’ books, but it’s perhaps all the more powerful for that. Delivered as a monologue addressed by a former top-notch Parisian lawyer to a stranger in an Amsterdam bar, it mounts a full-scale assault on upright humanitarians, (more...)
by Albert Camus Translated by Richard Howard Original title: La Mort heureuse
Camus’ first (subsequently abandoned) novel on the wonderful subject of what makes a good life is mostly set in his beloved hometown of Algiers and shot through with the sunny North African light he worshipped. Like D.H.Lawrence or George Orwell, Camus was a sick, (more...)