The Plague is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story from the point of view of an unknown narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

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 person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror.

“Its relevance lashes you across the face.”-The Los Angeles Times

“A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair.”-The Washington Post

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Albert Camus was a French-Algerian Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay 'The Rebel' that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual and sexual freedom.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: “No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked…”.

Camus was born in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family. He studied at the University of Algiers, where he was goalkeeper for the university association football team, until he contracted tuberculosis in 1930. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement after his split with Garry Davis's Citizens of the World movement. The formation of this group, according to Camus, was intended to “denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA” regarding their idolatry of technology.

Books in the “Albert Camus Books” bookshelf created by Johnny Venus