Camus at "Combat": Writing 1944-1947

Paris is firing all its ammunition into the August night. Against a vast backdrop of water and stone, on both sides of a river awash with history, freedom's barricades are once again being erected. Once again justice must be redeemed with men's blood.

Albert Camus (1913-1960) wrote these words in August 1944, as Paris was being liberated from German occupation. Although best known for his novels including The Stranger and The Plague, it was his vivid descriptions of the horrors of the occupation and his passionate defense of freedom that in fact launched his public fame.

Now, for the first time in English, Camus at 'Combat' presents all of Camus' World War II resistance and early postwar writings published in Combat, the resistance newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief and editorial writer between 1944 and 1947. These 165 articles and editorials show how Camus' thinking evolved from support of a revolutionary transformation of postwar society to a wariness of the radical left alongside his longstanding strident opposition to the reactionary right. These are poignant depictions of issues ranging from the liberation, deportation, justice for collaborators, the return of POWs, and food and housing shortages, to the postwar role of international institutions, colonial injustices, and the situation of a free press in democracies. The ideas that shaped the vision of this Nobel-prize winning novelist and essayist are on abundant display.

More than fifty years after the publication of these writings, they have lost none of their force. They still speak to us about freedom, justice, truth, and democracy.

Praise for the French edition: "A wonderful book. In 1944 Camus had already published "The Stranger" and "The Myth of Sisyphus." But it was his daily editorials in the resistance newspaper "Combat" that made him famous, and he emerged from the war as a moral and intellectual leader of postwar France."--Alice Kaplan, Duke University, author of "The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach"

For the first time in English, "Camus at Combat" presents all of Camus' World War II resistance and early postwar writings published in "Combat," the resistance newspaper where he served as editor-in-chief and editorial writer between 1944 and 1947.

Jacqueline Levi-Valensi (1932-2004) was Emeritus Professor and Dean of Literature at University de Picardie, in Amiens, and France's leading scholar on Camus. David Carroll is Professor of French at the University of California, Irvine. His books include "French Literary Fascism" (Princeton). Arthur Goldhammer has translated more than ninety books from the French. In 1996 he was named Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.

Foreword by David Carroll vii

Preface xxvii

Acknowledgments xxix

Introduction by Jacqueline Lévi-Valensi xxxi

Thematic Classification xxxiii

CHAPTER 1: Combat Underground: March-July 1944 1

CHAPTER 2: August 21, 1944-November 15, 1945 11

CHAPTER 3: November 19-30, 1946 255

CHAPTER 4: March 17-June 3, 1947 277

CHAPTER 5: 1948-1949 295

Chronology of Principal Events, 1944-1948 311

Partial Bibliography 333