Novel
The Plague
La Peste
Albert Camus · 1947
Synopsis
In Oran, in the forties, Doctor Bernard Rieux discovers a dead rat. Soon the rodents are dying by the thousands, then people fall ill in their turn. The authorities are slow to name the epidemic; when they finally do, the town is closed off. A journalist passing through, Rambert, tries to escape to get back to Paris; a Jesuit, Father Paneloux, sees the scourge as a punishment; a modest clerk, Grand, endlessly polishes the same sentence. Rieux, for his part, treats the sick.
Context
Written in large part during the war, the novel appeared with Gallimard in 1947. It was at once read as an allegory of the Occupation: the disease stood for the occupier, and the volunteers who gather around the doctor, for the Resistance. The narrative presents itself as a chronicle: it follows the course of the epidemic in a town closed in on itself, Oran, and the way its inhabitants face it.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, in the form of a chronicle; the deliberately restrained tone is that of a report.
Prizes and reception
In English, after Stuart Gilbert's translation, published in 1948, the novel has been retranslated, notably by Laura Marris in 2021.