In 1957, ALBERT CAMUS became the second youngest author to have been awarded the Nobel Prize. His tragic death in an automobile accident early in 1960 deprived the world of a philosopher, humanist, and novelist. The following essay, which appears in English for the first time, has been translated by Dorothy B. Aspinwall of the University of Hawaii.
Algerian-born, Nobel Prize winner ALBERT CAMUS is the author of THE STRANGER, THE PLAGUE, and THE FALL.
’I am not a painter of the absurd, and I do not believe in the literature of despair.”So replies ALBERT CAMUS to those who have labeled him Existentialist and to those who would wish him to be. Essayist, playwright, journalist, Albert Camus’s highest distinction has been as a novelist, and in The Stranger and The Plague he has proven himself as one of Frances leading writers. His eloquence and vigor have been faithfully rendered in this translation by Patricia Blake.