This book takes a fresh look at the novels and short stories of Albert Camus from his early
attempt at a first novel La Mort heureuse to the largely autobiographical Le Premier homme
unfinished at the time of his death. It seeks to see the oeuvre as a totality coherent
throughout and examines the linkages and transformations from one work to the next in the
context of Camus's thought attitudes and topoi or themes. The development of narrative
techniques is examined ranging from laconism to lyricism from allegorism to realism from
humour to biting satire. The author traces the influence on Camus's thought of philosophers and
thinkers as diverse as Nietzsche and the pre-Socratics on the one hand and St Augustine
Pascal and Simone Weil on the other and considers the circularity of his work from the early
preoccupation with the finality of death and the search for meaning to the return to the origin
and source in Le Premier homme. The enduring appeal of Camus's work is attributed to its humane
openness and its challenges for our time.
