Camus in the Americas

Would the Founding Fathers recognise the modern United States as the republic they declared in 1776? The nation formed from Britain’s North American colonies has become the most powerful and prosperous in the world, but the muted celebrations on 4 July reflected a divided country ...  Show more

In the sixth episode of their series, Sarah and Sandeep look at poems that explore the complexities of money and its metaphorical power: Frederick Seidel’s ‘In Late December’ starts with an image of degradation in the symbolic heart of global capitalism but ends with an ambiguous ...  Show more

Albert Camus was a literary giant of the 20th century, known for his philosophy of absurdity in the human quest for the meaning of life. His personal life and North African roots helped shape his writing. In philosophy circles, many called him a prominent voice of existentialism, ...  Show more

‘There is no sun without shadows, and it is essential to know the night,’ the words of Albert Camus, a writer whose exploration of the absurd nature of the human condition made him a literary and intellectual icon. Camus was born in Algeria but is celebrated in France as one of i ...  Show more

Today we talk about the concept of exile from the work of Camus. We focus on a couple stories from his book Exile and The Kingdom. We talk about why Camus insists that true lucidity can only arise from the jarring lived experience he calls “exile,” not from armchair reflection. W ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Algerian-French writer and Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus. Shortly after the new year of 1960, a powerful sports car crashed in the French town of Villeblevin in Burgundy, killing two of its occupants. One was the publisher Michel Gall ...  Show more