The meeting with the father: le premier homme of albert camus

Abstract

Albert Camus is known mainly by his novels, La Peste and L’Etranger, but he has also written some plays and important philosophic essays and journalistic articles. In 1957 the Nobel prize was given to him for the ensemble of his work recognizing his voice as serving the humanitarian causes, as the “Résistance” during the Second World War or the fight for the Algerian Liberty. The notebooks of his book Le premier homme (CAMUS, 1994) were found among the accident’s debris that he suffered and that killed him in 1960. This book was only published in 1994 and was a “big posthumous bestseller”. It was written in the 50s. After his success in the theatre, Camus begins this “almost veiled autobiography”. It was said that the author wanted to leave his last testament, the one he had not the time to tell, or write, the secrets that were kept in the depth of his heart and that he only could reveal in the eve of his death.

Keywords: Camus. French Literature. 20th Century Literature. Second World War.Alger.