Kleine Prosa

by Albert Camus

158 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 1997

About the author

Works, such as the novels The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), of Algerian-born French writer and philosopher Albert Camus concern the absurdity of the human condition; he won the Nobel Prize of 1957 for literature.

Origin and his experiences of this representative of non-metropolitan literature in the 1930s dominated influences in his thought and work.

He also adapted plays of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Dino Buzzati, and Requiem for a Nun of William Faulkner. One may trace his enjoyment of the theater back to his membership in l'Equipe, an Algerian group, whose "collective creation" Révolte dans les Asturies (1934) was banned for political reasons.

Of semi-proletarian parents, early attached to intellectual circles of strongly revolutionary tendencies, with a deep interest, he came at the age of 25 years in 1938; only chance prevented him from pursuing a university career in that field. The man and the times met: Camus joined the resistance movement during the occupation and after the liberation served as a columnist for the newspaper Combat.

The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds notion of acceptance of the absurd of Camus with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction."
Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation.

Besides his fiction and essays, Camus very actively produced plays in the theater (e.g., Caligula, 1944).

The time demanded his response, chiefly in his activities, but in 1947, Camus retired from political journalism.

Doctor Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the absurd and of injustice, and confirms words: "We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men, we still want to serve them."

People also well know La Chute (The Fall), work of Camus in 1956.

Camus authored L'Exil et le royaume (Exile and the Kingdom) in 1957. His austere search for moral order found its aesthetic correlative in the classicism of his art. He styled of great purity, intense concentration, and rationality.

Camus died at the age of 46 years in a car accident near Sens in le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin.

Chinese 阿尔贝·加缪

Reviews

[Natascha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es fällt mir nicht ganz leicht hier eine fundierte Meinung abzugeben, da ich nicht alle Texte zu Ende gelesen habe, aber ich finde leider einfach keinen Zugang zu den Reden von Albert Camus und auch seine Essays konnten mich nicht überzeugen oder gar fesseln. Die Erzählungen habe ich zwar komplett gelesen, aber auch die reichen nicht annähernd an seine Romane heran. Einzig Der Gast konnte mich vollständig überzeugen.

[Bücherwolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich habe schon viele Werke von Camus gelesen. Sowohl seine Essays, als auch seine Dramen und Romane. Auch diese drei Erzählungen waren genauso gut wie seine Romane. Camus ist ohne Zweifel einer der besten Schriftsteller des Existentialismus und begründer des Absurdismus. Für jeden Menschen empfehlenswert.

[Melanie Herz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die Essays und Reden sind meist nicht so meins, aber die kurzen Geschichten / Erzählungen sind toll.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Konnte nicht mit allem was anfangen. Licht und Schatten,der Künstler und seine Zeit und der Abtrünnige waren am besten.