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. GREAT IDEAS. 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.
"We can finally read the work as Camus meant it to be read. Laura Marris's new translation of The Plague is, quite simply, the translation we need to have." --Los Angeles Review of Books The first new translation of The Plague to be published in the United States in more than seventy years, bringing the Nobel Prize winner's iconic novel (A redemptive book, one that wills the reader to believe, even in a time of despair. --The Washington Post) to a new generation of readers.
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.
An immediate triumph when it was published in 1947, The Plague is in part an allegory of France's suffering under the Nazi occupation, as well as a timeless story of bravery and determination against the precariousness of human existence. In this fresh yet careful translation, award-winning translator Laura Marris breathes new life into Albert Camus's ever-resonant tale. Restoring the restrained lyricism of the original French text, and liberating it from the archaisms and assumptions of the previous English translation, Marris grants English readers the closest access we have ever had to the meaning and searing beauty of The Plague.
This updated edition promises to add relevance and urgency to a classic novel of twentieth-century literature.
'To create today is to create dangerously' Camus argues passionately that the artist has a responsibility to challenge, provoke and speak up for those who cannot in this powerful speech, accompanied here by two others. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.
