Albert Camus's The Complete Notebooks return in English
Updated
Updated · The Wall Street Journal · May 8
Albert Camus's The Complete Notebooks return in English
10 articles · Updated · The Wall Street Journal · May 8
The 712-page University of Chicago Press edition is translated by Ryan Bloom and spans Camus's development from colonial Algeria to the French Resistance and Nobel fame.
The notebooks include early drafts, reflections on suicide, war and Soviet abuses, and reveal his anguish after winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in Paris.
They also illuminate disputes over revolutionary violence and Algeria, while Bloom notes the journals were later typed and retrospectively edited, tempering their apparent candour.
Do Camus's secret notebooks justify his controversial stance on the brutal Algerian War?
Why is Albert Camus still called an existentialist when his own notebooks fought the label?