The First Man (Hardcover) | Released: 29 Aug 1995

In The First Man Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellspring of Camus' aesthetic powers and moral vision. From Booklist The circumstances surrounding the publication of this work, which first appeared in France in 1994, establish it as a genuine literary event: the manuscript was discovered in the wreckage of the car in which Camus was killed in 1960; it was not published at the time because the author's wife and close friends feared a negative reaction from the French Left. Although the text offers the only record of Camus' childhood, it is no simple autobiographical novel. In telling the story of his metaphorical search for his father, who died in World War I, Camus returns to the "land of oblivion where each one is the first man" and must find his own answers. The book also offers a defense of Camus' controversial position on the war that was then raging in Algeria; arguing for a federation of Arabs and Europeans in Algeria, Camus found himself at odds with other French intellectuals of the time, who were against the European presence. But Camus had grown up French in Algeria, apied noir, poor, without roots, and knowing only the land his family and others like them had been forced to adopt. This novel is rough and incomplete; the editors have included explanatory comments and Camus' marginal notes, though these aren't necessary to experience the content. The distinctive rhythm of Camus' language is here, as is his deep understanding of life. Some ideas are not polished, but others are perfect gems: "Remembrance of things past is just for the rich. For the poor it only marks the faint traces along the path to death." Fortunately, the manuscript wasn't destroyed because it provides a beautiful testament to the human capacity to learn and to rejoice in life in spite of the circumstances of one's birth.Bonnie Smothers From the Publisher "A masterpiece...One of the most extraordinary evocations of childhood that exists in any language."-- Boston Globe"Serves as a kind of magical Rosetta stone to Camus's entire career, illuminating both his life and his work with stunning candor and passion."-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"The most ambitious and compassionate of his books...The First Man has resurrected the author as dramatically as a revisitation."-- The Nation From the Inside Flap Man Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellspring of Camus' aesthetic powers and moral vision. About the Author Born in Algeria in 1913, Albert Camus published The Stranger-- now one of the most widely read novels of this century-- in 1942. Celebrated in intellectual circles, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. On January 4, 1960, he was killed in a car accident. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Intercessor: Widow CamusTo you who will never be able to read this bookAbove the wagon rolling along a stony road, big thick clouds were hurrying to the East through the dusk. Three days ago they had inflated over the Atlantic, had waited for a wind from the West, had set out, slowly at first then faster and faster, had flown over the phosphorescent autumn waters, straight to the continent, had unravele