"To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing."

Camus's powerful lecture, as relevant today as ever, argues against 'art for art's sake', while his Nobel Prize speech brilliantly sets out his vision of the artist's role and responsibilities.

Hierdie klassieke roman van die befaamde Franse skrywer Albert Camus handel oor die lotgevalle van ’n klompie mense wat in die Algerynse stad Oran vasgekeer word wanneer builepes daar uitbreek. Die hoofkarakter, dr. Bernard Rieux, word die eerste keer bewus van iets buitengewoons wanneer groot klompe rotte vrek in die woonstelgebou waar hy bly. Gaandeweg word hy al meer by die behandeling van die siekes betrek en word hy toeskouer van hoe verskillende mense reageer wanneer toestande al hagliker en benouender word. Sy band met ander mense, soos die toeris Tarrou, die joernalis Rambert en die staatsamptenaar Grand word deur hulle betrokkenheid by die verloop van die pes versterk, terwyl hulle na die sluiting van die stadspoorte al hoe meer bewus word van hulle afsondering en die afwesigheid van geliefdes. Camus se roman is al gelees as allegorie van die besetting van Frankryk gedurende die Tweede Wereldoorlog en die pes kan beskou word as enige bedreiging vir menslike vryheid. Die bedreiging van 'n epidemie soos vigs verleen aan hierdie roman besondere relevansie vir Suid-Afrikaanse lesers.

The Myth of Sisyphus is one of the most profound philosophical statements written this century. It is a discussion of the central idea of Absurdity that Camus was to develop in his novel The Outsider. Here Camus poses the fundamental question: Is life worth living? If existence has ceased to retain significance when confronted with the fragmented reality of the human condition, what then can keep us from suicide? Camus movingly argues for an acceptance of reality that encompasses revolt, passion and, above all, liberty.

This volume contains several other essays, including lyrical evocations of the sunlit cities of Algiers and Oran.

The exquisite manga adaptation of one of the world’s greatest 20th century fiction classics

'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.'

A stranger to society, a stranger to his own life, Meursault seems indifferent to everything. In The Outsider, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal.

A first in Penguin Modern Classics, Camus’ classic existentialist novel is told through Ryota Kurumado’s powerful artwork. Unlike previous editions of Camus’ novel, Meursault and other characters’ emotions are drawn out through stunning illustrations and seen for the first time. A rare and challenging feat, Kurumado’s manga adaptation makes a novel first published in 1942 feel contemporary.

Best known for his existentialist novel The Outsider, set in French-occupied Algeria, Albert Camus was profoundly influenced by the landscapes, towns and traditions of his youth. Selected here are some of his finest personal essays about Algeria and its environs, including the luminous ‘Nuptials at Tipasa’, one of his earliest works where he developed the themes that would inform his later philosophy: to thrive now, without hope for paradise, as mortal life alone can be worthwhile.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.;Inspired by the myth of a man condemned to ceaselessly push a rock up a mountain and watch it roll back to the valley below, The Myth of Sisyphus transformed twentieth-century philosophy with its impassioned argument for the value of life in a world without religious meaning.

History / Characters: 18 males, 2 females

Scenery: Exterior

Caligula explores the absolutism of power and the catastrophe of tyranny. Caesar summons his council, whose first thought is of taxes. Very well, says Caesar, if taxes are more important than human hearts, he may safely kill without conscience. He pursues the logic to the bitter end. In the last scene, he is murdered, an ending he knew was inevitable. "Has given the theatre a red hot glow." N.Y. World Telegram & Sun.

The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine, each responding in their own way to the lethal bacillus: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror. An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, Camus’s novel is in part an allegory for France’s suffering under Nazi occupation, and also a story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence.

‘An impressive new translation … of this matchless fable of fear, courage and cowardice’
Independent

Translated by Robin Buss with an Introduction by Tony Judt

Through the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd." First published in 1946; now in a new translation by Matthew Ward.

L'Etranger has the force and fascination of myth. The outwardly simple narrative of an office clerk who kills an Arab, 'a cause du soleil', and finds himself condemned to death for moral insensibility becomes, in Camus's hands, a powerful image of modern man's impatience before Christian philosophy and conventional social and sexual values. For this new edition Ray Davison makes use of recent critical analysis of L'Etranger to give a full and concise description of Camus's early philosophy of the Absurd and the ideas and preoccupations from which the novel emerges. Davison also discusses the developing pattern of Camus's notion of the art of the novel, his views on 'classicism', simplicity and ambiguity, his fondness for paradox, and his love of everyday situations which yield to mythical interpretation.

'My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know.' In The Outsider (1942), his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms. Meursault, his anti-hero, will not lie. When his mother dies, he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others. And when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers, his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society and the law. Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal. Albert Camus' portrayal of a man confronting the absurd, and revolting against the injustice of society, depicts the paradox of man's joy in life when faced with the 'tender indifference' of the world. Sandra Smith's translation, based on close listening to a recording of Camus reading his work aloud on French radio in 1954, sensitively renders the subtleties and dream-like atmosphere of L'Etranger. Albert Camus (1913-1960), French novelist, essayist and playwright, is one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. His most famous works include The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), The Plague (1947), The Just (1949), The Rebel (1951) and The Fall (1956). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, and his last novel, The First Man, unfinished at the time of his death, appeared in print for the first time in 1994, and was published in English soon after by Hamish Hamilton. Sandra Smith was born and raised in New York City and is a Fellow of Robinson College, University of Cambridge, where she teaches French Literature and Language. She has won the French American Foundation Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize, as well as the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize.

Camus described this brilliant essay on the nature of human revolt as 'an attempt to understand the time I live in'. Published in 1951, it expresses his horror at the events of a period which 'within fifty years, uproots, enslaves, or kills seventy million human beings'. Hope for the future, he argues lies in revolt, which unlike revolution, is a spontaneous response to injustice and a chance to achieve change without giving up individual or collective freedom .

The Rebel created an irreconcilable rift between Camus and his friend Jean-Paul Sartre who bitterly attacked Camus for his criticism of communism.

'When silence or tricks of language contribute to maintaining an abuse that must be reformed or a suffering that can be relieved, then there is no other solution but to speak out' Written when execution by guillotine was still legal in France, Albert Camus' devastating attack on the 'obscene exhibition' of capital punishment remains one of the most powerful, persuasive arguments ever made against the death penalty. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. Jean-Baptiste Clamence - refined, handsome, forty, a former successful lawyer - is in turmoil. Over several drunken nights he regales a chance acquaintance with his story. He talks of parties and his debauchery, of Parisian nights and the Aegean sea, and, ultimately, of his self-loathing. One of Albert Camus' most famous works, The Fall is a brilliant, complex portrayal of lost innocence and the true face of man.

'It was the discovery of the essays celebrating his childhood and youth that altered my perception of Camus, 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' Geoff Dyer Albert Camus was born in a 'world of poverty and sunshine' in Algeria, which would infuse all of his work. This new collection brings together three volumes of Camus' most intimate autobiographical writings for the first time. The Wrong Side and the Right Side, his first book, describes his family and his early years in a working-class neighbourhood. Nuptials rejoices in the sensuality of sun, landscape and sea, while Summer ranges over the cities of Algiers and Oran, nature and identity. Lyrical and emotional, these pieces enrich our understanding of Camus and his love of life.

A new collection of Albert Camus' most brilliant speeches and lectures 'Freedom is dangerous, as hard to live as it is exalting...' This definitive new collection of Albert Camus' public speeches and lectures gives a compelling insight into one of the twentieth century's most enduring writers. From a pre-war speech on the politics of the Mediterranean - delivered when he was just twenty-two - to his impassioned Nobel Prize acceptance lectures and several pieces appearing in English for the first time, Speaking Out shows Camus' clarity and subtlety of thought, his 'stubborn humanism' and his unerring commitment to freedom and justice. Translated by Quintin Hoare

Elegantly styled, Camus' profoundly disturbing novel of a Parisian lawyer's confessions is a searing study of modern amorality.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
From one of the most brilliant and influential thinkers of the twentieth century-two novels, six short stories, and a pair of essays in a single volume. In both his essays and his fiction, Albert Camus (1913--1960) de-ployed his lyric eloquence in defense against despair, providing an affirmation of the brave assertion of humanity in the face of a universe devoid of order or meaning.
"The Plague"-written in 1947 and still profoundly relevant-is a riveting tale of horror, survival, and resilience in the face of a devastating epidemic. "The Fall" (1956), which takes the form of an astonishing confession by a French lawyer in a seedy Amsterdam bar, is a haunting parable of modern conscience in the face of evil. The six stories of "Exile and the Kingdom "(1957) represent Camus at the height of his narrative powers, masterfully depicting his characters-from a renegade missionary to an adulterous wife -at decisive moments of revelation. Set beside their fictional counterparts, Camus's famous essays "The Myth of Sisyphus" and "Reflections on the Guillotine" are all the more powerful and philosophically daring, confirming his towering place in twentieth-century thought.