Personal Writings

It was the discovery of the essays celebrating his childhood and youth that altered my perception of him, from a thinker to a writer whose intellectual lucidity was a product of the wealth - the sensual immediacy and clarity - that had been heaped on his senses

It was the discovery of the essays celebrating his childhood and youth that altered my perception of him, from a thinker to a writer whose intellectual lucidity was a product of the wealth - the sensual immediacy and clarity - that had been heaped on his senses

Probably no European writer of his time left so deep a mark on the imagination

What will strike many readers is the author's extraordinarily evocative language, his astonishing facility to create memorable phrases and take readers to places most have never been but where, because of his artistry, they feel immediately at home. Much eloquent-often lyrical-evidence that the author deserved his Nobel Prize.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Algiers. He studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, and became a journalist. His most important works include The Outsider , The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague and The Fall . After the occupation of France by the Germans in 1941, Camus became one of the intellectual leaders of the Resistance movement. He was killed in a road accident, and his last unfinished novel, The First Man , appeared posthumously.

Justin O'Brien was the Blanche W. Knopf Professor of French Literature at Columbia University and renowed translator of André Gide and Albert Camus, both of whom were his intimate friends.