Discovered in the wreckage of car accident in which the author died in 1960, this work gives insights into his life and the themes underlying his work.
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.br>br>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 twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.>
An essay on the nature of human revolt, this book makes a critique of communism, how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain, and the resulting totalitarian regimes. It also questions two events held sacred by the left wing, the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Explores the dilemma of being an outsider - even in one's own country - and of allegiance. This work aims to evoke beautiful but harsh landscapes, whether the shimmering deserts of Algeria or the wild, mysterious jungles of Brazil.
Written when execution by guillotine was still legal in France, Albert Camus' devastating attack on the 'obscene exhibition' of capital punishment remains one of the most powerful, persuasive arguments ever made against the death penalty. GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
In many ways this work can be seen as a first sketch for Camus's renowned early novel, "The Outsider", but it can also be viewed as a candid self-portrait, drawing on Camus's memories of his youth, travels and early relationships.
Offers a portrayal of a man who has glimpsed the hollowness of his existence. But beyond depicting one man's disillusionment, this novel exposes the universal human condition and its absurdities - and our innocence that, once lost, can never be recaptured.
'To create today is to create dangerously' Camus argues passionately that the artist has a responsibility to challenge, provoke and speak up for those who cannot in this powerful speech, accompanied here by two others. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
'On the morning of April 16, Dr Rieux emerged from his consulting-room and came across a dead rat in the middle of the landing.' It starts with the rats. Vomiting blood, they die in their hundreds, then in their thousands. When the rats are all gone, the citizens begin to fall sick. Like the rats, they too die in ever greater numbers.
The authorities quarantine the town. Cut off, the terrified townspeople must face this horror alone. Some resign themselves to death or the whims of fate. Others seek someone to blame or dream of revenge. One is determined to escape.
But a few, like stoic Dr Rieux, stand together to fight the terror. A monstrous evil has entered their lives but they will never surrender to it.
Written during the bleakest days of the Second World War, this volume argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty. It also contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran, and the settings of other novels, such as "The Outsider" and "The Plague".
"We can finally read the work as Camus meant it to be read. Laura Marris's new translation of The Plague is, quite simply, the translation we need to have." --Los Angeles Review of Books The first new translation of The Plague to be published in the United States in more than seventy years, bringing the Nobel Prize winner's iconic novel (A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair. --The Washington Post) to a new generation of readers.
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation, and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr. Rieux, resist the terror.
An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, as well as a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. In this fresh yet careful translation, award-winning translator Laura Marris breathes new life into Albert Camus's ever-resonant tale. Restoring the restrained lyricism of the original French text, and liberating it from the archaisms and assumptions of the previous English translation, Marris grants English readers the closest access we have ever had to the meaning and searing beauty of The Plague.
This updated edition promises to add relevance and urgency to a classic novel of twentieth-century literature.
She was waiting, but she didn't know for what. She was aware only of her solitude, and of the penetrating cold, and of a greater weight in the region of her heart.' Camus's writing confronts the great philosophical dilemmas of our time with piercing clarity. These three powerful and evocative stories are heavy with the weight of the human condition, and rich with atmosphere. In them, an ageing labourer, a woman travelling in North Africa with her husband, and a schoolteacher tasked with transporting a prisoner each face their own moral crises.
This book contains The Adulterous Woman, The Silent Men and The Guest.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) no sólo fue uno de los escritores más prestigiosos de la generación que llegó a la madurez entre las ruinas, la frustración y la desesperanza de la Europa demolida por las dos Guerras Mundiales, sino que el paso del tiempo agiganta cada vez más su figura excepcional y el valor de su obra. " El extranjero " , novela con cuya publicación saltó a la fama en 1942, tiene como referencia omnipresente a Meursault, su protagonista, a quien una serie de circunstancias conduce a cometer un crimen aparentemente inmotivado. El desenlace de su proceso judicial no tendrá más sentido que su vida, corroída por la cotidianidad y gobernada por fuerzas anónimas que, al despojar a los hombres de la condición de sujetos autónomos, los eximen también de responsabilidad y de culpa. Traducción de José Ángel Valente.
