The Cambridge Companion to Camus

by Edited by Edward J. Hughes

• ISBN13: 9780521840484
• ISBN10: 0521840481
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-05-28
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Albert Camus is one of the iconic figures of twentieth-century French literature, one of France’s most widely read modern literary authors and one of the youngest winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. As the author of L’Etranger and the architect of the notion of 'the Absurd’ in the 1940s, he shot to prominence in France and beyond. His work nevertheless attracted hostility as well as acclaim and he was increasingly drawn into bitter political controversies, especially the issue of France’s place and role in the country of his birth, Algeria. Most recently, postcolonial studies have identified in his writings a set of preoccupations ripe for revisitation. Situating Camus in his cultural and historical context, this Companion explores his best-selling novels, his ambiguous engagement with philosophy, his theatre, his increasingly high-profile work as a journalist and his reflection on ethical and political questions that continue to concern readers today.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. x
Chronology	p. xi
Preliminary notes and abbreviations	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Biography and Influences
Camus: a life lived in critical times	p. 13
Situating Camus: the formative influences	p. 26
Autobiographical soundings in L'Envers et l'Endroit	p. 39
Themes, Preoccupations and Genres
Rethinking the absurd: Le Mythe de Sisyphe	p. 53
Camus and the theatre	p. 67
Camus the journalist	p. 79
Camus and social justice	p. 93
Violence and ethics in Camus	p. 106
Camus and Sartre: the great quarrel	p. 118
Portraits of women, visions of Algeria	p. 131
Texts and Contexts
From Noces to L'Etranger	p. 147
Layers of meaning in La Peste	p. 165
Withheld identity in La Chute	p. 178
Le Premier Homme and the literature of loss	p. 191
Postface	p. 203
Guide to further reading	p. 210
Index	p. 220
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