Read complete books and articles on: Albert Camus

Camus, Albert - älbĕrˈ kämüˈ, 1913–60, French writer, b. Algiers. Camus was one of the most important authors and thinkers of the 20th cent. While a student at the Univ. of Algiers, he formed a theater group and adapted, directed, and acted in plays. He became active in social reform and was briefly a member of the Communist party. Shortly after his essay Noces [weddings] appeared (1939), he went to Paris as a journalist. In World War II he joined the French resistance and was principal editor of the underground paper Combat.

Noted for his vigorous, concise, and lucid style, Camus soon gained recognition as a major literary figure. His belief that man's condition is absurd identified him with the existentialists (see existentialism), but he denied allegiance to that group; his works express rather a courageous humanism. The characters in his novels and plays, although keenly aware of the meaninglessness of the human condition, assert their humanity by rebelling against their circumstances.

His essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942, tr. The Myth of Sisyphus, 1955) formulates his theory of the absurd and is the philosophical basis of his novel L'Étranger (1942, tr. The Stranger, 1946) and of his plays Le Malentendu (1944, tr. Cross Purpose, 1948) and Caligula (1944, tr. 1948). The essay L'Homme révolté (1951, tr. The Rebel, 1954), dealing with historical, spiritual, and political rebellion, treats themes found in the novels La Peste (1947, tr. The Plague, 1948) and La Chute (1956, tr. The Fall, 1957). Other works include the plays L'État de siège (1948, tr. State of Siege, 1958); and Les Justes (1950, tr. The Just Assassins, 1958); journalistic essays; and stories. Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature. The first draft of an autobiographical novel, found in a briefcase after his death in a car crash, was published as Le Premier Homme (1994, tr. The First Man, 1995).

See his Notebooks, ed. by P. Thody (2 vol., 1963, 1965); biography by O. Todd (1997); studies by G. Brée (4th ed. 1972), D. Lazere (1973), L. Braun (1974), P. McCarthy (1982), and D. Sprintzen (1988).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Albert Camus

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Albert Camus: A Study of His Work » Read Now
by Philip Thody. 155 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...ALBERT CAMUS A STUDY OF HIS WORK Photo IZIS ALBERT CAMUS ALBERT CAMUS A STUDY OF HIS WORK BY PHILIP THODY Assistant Lecturer in...
2.

Camus: A Critical Examination » Read Now
by David Sprintzen. 310 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...0-87722-544-3 alk. paper 1. Camus, Albert, 1913-1960--Criticism and interpretation...makes to himself, in silence. -- ALBERT CAMUS Nobel Prize Address Stockholm...greater...
3.

The Thought and Art of Albert Camus » Read Now
by Thomas B. Hanna. 204 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

...THE THOUGHT AND ART of ALBERT CAMUS "Un petit traite, deux recits...1950. THE THOUGHT AND ART of ALBERT CAMUS THOMAS HANNA HENRY REGNERY...BIBLIOGRAPHY 201 PREFACE ALBERT...
4.

The Stranger » Read Now
by Albert Camus. 156 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library

...THE STRANGER THE STRANGER By ALBERT CAMUS Translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert...Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Camus, Albert, 1913-1960 The...
5.

Closure and Anticlosure in Camus's L'Etranger: Some Ideological Considerations, in Symposium » Read Now
by Jack Murray. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...problem at issue here better than Albert Camus LEtranger . While firmly installed...Jacqueline Levi-Valensi, eds., Albert Camus: oeuvre fermee, oeuvre...
6.

The Dynamics of the Absurd in the Existentialist Novel (Chap. IV "The Stranger; The Myth of Sisyphus") » Read Now
by Richard E. Baker. 141 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library
7.

Discourse and Polyphony in La Peste, in Symposium » Read Now
by Richard Shryock. 9 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Prince 1987, 102). 4. Albert Camus, La Peste , in Theatre...New York: Methuen, 1980 . Camus, Albert. La Peste , in Theatre, recits...discours attributif dans La Peste," in...
8.

Classic Cult Fiction: A Companion to Popular Cult Literature ("The Stranger: Albert Camus (1942)" begins on p. 237) » Read Now
by Thomas Reed Whissen. 324 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Classic Cult Fiction is a history, analysis, and reference guide to books that have become "bibles" to generations of Europeans and Americans over the past 200 years--books like The Catcher in the Rye. Fearlessly taking on "canon formation," Whissen identifies the top 50 classic cult books, first...
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Classic Cult Fiction is a history, analysis, and reference guide to books that have become "bibles" to generations of Europeans and Americans over the past 200 years--books like The Catcher in the Rye. Fearlessly taking on "canon formation," Whissen identifies the top 50 classic cult books, first presenting an informed and witty interpretation of the phenomenon and its characteristics with examples from different cultures and periods. The individual works are each discussed relative to time and place, impact, and audience psychology and analyzed in terms of common cult attributes. A chronological listing of cult fiction adds a number of titles not chosen for the top 50.
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9.

Camus' Imperial Vision » Read Now
by Anthony Rizzuto. 152 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library

...supervised by Richard Neal Works by Albert Camus quoted with permission from Editions...as follows: TRN Camus Albert. Theatre, Recits, Nouvelles...Bruges: Gallimard, 1962...
10.

The Image in the Modern French Novel: Gide, Alain-Fournier, Proust, Camus (Chap. IV "The Two Styles of Camus") » Read Now
by Stephen Ullmann. 318 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...NOVEL GIDE, ALAIN-FOURNIER, PROUST CAMUS BY STEPHEN ULLMANN, PH.D., D.LITT...124 IV The two styles of Camus 239 References 300...Bruneau , La Prose litteraire de Proust a...
11.

The Other Camus, in The Wilson Quarterly » Read Now
by Robert Royal. 15 pgs.

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12.

Camus, Sartre and the Algerian War, in Journal of European Studies » Read Now
by Annie Cohen-Solal. 8 pgs.

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13.

The Third Man in the Story: Ronald Aronson Discusses the Sartre-Camus Conflict with Francis Jeanson, in Sartre Studies International » Read Now
by Ronald Aronson, Caroline Jumel, Basil Kingstone. 48 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library
14.

Literary and Philosophical Essays (Chap. II "Camus' 'The Outsider'") » Read Now
by Jean-Paul Sartre, Annette Michelson. 260 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library
15.

Images of the Algerian War: French Fiction and Film, 1954-1992 (Chap. 4 "Anti-colonialist Commitment: Camus's Uninvited Guest") » Read Now
by Philip D. Dine. 284 pgs.

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The memory of the Algerian war (1954-1962) continues to haunt French society. Although part of a much wider process of decolonization, the conflict was so traumatic that it brought France to the verge of civil war. Philip Dine has written the first full-length survey in any language of the French...
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The memory of the Algerian war (1954-1962) continues to haunt French society. Although part of a much wider process of decolonization, the conflict was so traumatic that it brought France to the verge of civil war. Philip Dine has written the first full-length survey in any language of the French fiction and film generated by the war, ranging from the writings of Camus to the cinema of Godard, and from the 1950s to the 1990s. Writers discussed include Camus, Etecherelli, Marie Cardinal, Genet, Millecam, Perec, and Jules Roy. Filmmakers covered include Godard, Ophuls, Varda, Schoendorffer, Marker, Resnais, and Demy. All quotations in French are accompanied by English translations.
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16.

Writing French Algeria (Discussion of Albert Camus begins on p. 175) » Read Now
by Peter H. Dunwoodie. 346 pgs.

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Writing French Algeria is a groundbreaking study of the European literary discourse on French Algeria between the conquest of 1830 and the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. For the first time in English, this intertextual reading reveals the debate conducted within Algeria - and between colony...
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Writing French Algeria is a groundbreaking study of the European literary discourse on French Algeria between the conquest of 1830 and the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. For the first time in English, this intertextual reading reveals the debate conducted within Algeria - and between colony and metropole - that aimed to forge an independent cultural identity for the European settlers. Through astute discussions of various texts, Peter Dunwoodie maps the representation of Algeria both in the dominant nineteenth-century discourse of Orientalism, via the littérature d'escale of writers such as Gautier or Fromentein, and in the colonial writing of Louis Bertrand, Robert Randau, and the `Algerianists' who played a critical role in the construction of the new `Algerian'. Dunwoodie shows how this ultimate construction relied on an extremely selective process which marginalized the indigenous people of the Maghreb in order to rediscover the country's `Latin' roots. The book also focuses on the dialogism operative in the works of École d'Alger writers like Gabriel Audisio, Albert Camus, and Emmanuel Roblès, interrogating the way in which their voices countered the closure of those earlier strategies and yet still articulated the unresolvable dilemma of an inherently unstable and impermanent minority whose identity remained grounded in otherness.
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