In the first decade of a new century, this collection of bilingual essays examines Camus's continuing popularity for a new generation of readers. In crucial respects, the world Camus knew has changed beyond all recognition: decolonization, the fall of the Iron Curtain, a new era of globalization and the rise of new forms of terrorism have all provoked a reconsideration of Camus's writings. If the Absurd once struck a particular chord, Meursault is as likely now to be seen as a colonial figure who expresses the alienation of the settler from the land of his birth. Yet this increasing orthodoxy...

This is the first major investigation of Camus's prose fiction to explore the developing presentation of women, from the author's earliest writings to his last, unfinished novel. Avoiding the traditional relegation of this subject to an emotional or private sphere, it traces Camus's intellectual development in order to demonstrate the centrality of this subject to Camus's work as a whole. If the Absurd, constructed over the body of the "real" woman, liberates the writer to follow a "true path" of literary creation, the impending loss of his Algerian homeland impells a return to "all that he...