BLOOM (2008)

Albert Camus' Notebooks Cover

Notebooks, 1951-1959

Translator: Ryan Bloom
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 2008

The first two volumes of his Notebooks began as simple instruments of his work; this final volume, recorded over the last nine years of his life, take on the characteristics of a more personal diary. Fearing that his memory was beginning to fail him, Camus noted here his reactions to the polemics stirred by The Rebel, his feelings about the Algerian War, his sojourns in Greece and Italy, thinly veiled observations on his wife and lovers, heartaches over his family, and anxiety over the Nobel Prize that he was awarded in 1957.

Reviews

“It’s simply a pure and bountiful good to have this book available in English” (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post)

“Ryan Bloom has superbly contextualized his highly readable translation of Camus’ last working notebooks. His translator’s note, a model of its kind, explains why he lets Camus’ French echo through the English” (Marilyn Gaddis-Rose, founder in 1971 of the nation’s first PhD program in translation)