Travels in the Americas - (The France Chicago Collection) by Albert Camus (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The French writer Albert Camus is best known for his novels and philosophical works, which are among the most influential of the twentieth century. But his journals, which he kept from 1935 to 1959, offer an intimate glimpse into his thinking at its most personal. Beautifully retranslated by Ryan Bloom and supplemented by an introduction by Alice Kaplan, Travels in the Americas presents the journals that Camus wrote during his eventful visits to the United States in 1946 and to South America in 1949. When Camus sailed to the US in 1946, he was virtually unknown to American audiences. All that was about to change-The Stranger, his first book translated into English, was about to be published, and he would soon be a literary star. By 1949, when he set out for South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus's journals from these two trips record his impressions, frustrations, and longings. Here are his vivid first impressions of New York City, his encounters with publishers and critics and assorted shipmates. Camus appears unguarded, his fallibility on full display. He is irritated by mediocrity and frustrated by his health. Yet he is also moved to rapture by landscapes, by women, or simply by the bounty of his own philosophical imagination. Long unavailable in English and now freshly translated and annotated, these journals let readers walk beside the existentialist thinker as he experiences the changes in his own life and in the world around him, openly describing his passions and preoccupations on the way, all in his inimitable style"--

Book Synopsis

Albert Camus's lively journals from his eventful visits to the United States and South America in the 1940s, available again in a new translation.

In March 1946, the young Albert Camus crossed from Le Havre to New York. Though he was virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, all that was about to change--The Stranger, his first book translated into English, would soon make him a literary star. By 1949, when he set out on a tour of South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus's journals offer an intimate glimpse into his daily life during these eventful years and showcase his thinking at its most personal--a form of observational writing that the French call choses vues (things seen).

Camus's journals from these travels record his impressions, frustrations, joys, and longings. Here are his unguarded first impressions of his surroundings and his encounters with publishers, critics, and members of the New York intelligentsia. Long unavailable in English, the journals have now been expertly retranslated by Ryan Bloom, with a new introduction by Alice Kaplan. Bloom's translation captures the informal, sketch-like quality of Camus's observations--by turns ironic, bitter, cutting, and melancholy--and the quick notes he must have taken after exhausting days of travel and lecturing. Bloom and Kaplan's notes and annotations allow readers to walk beside the existentialist thinker as he experiences changes in his own life and the world around him, all in his inimitable style.

Review Quotes

"[Camus's] written impressions of these visits to the Americas are beautifully presented in the volume reviewed here, with helpful notes, over a dozen images, a fine contextual introduction by Alice Kaplan, two appendices of 1946 New York press clippings, and an index. . . . [These journals] show a writer fascinated by the practices of ordinary people in their intoxications and in their efforts to make human connection against and despite the immensities of life."-- "American Literary History"

"We glean from this book a great deal about Camus's approach as a writer and thinker. By offering us insights into the workings of his mind through largely un-retouched journal commentaries, his prose yields a strongly unified vision of a better possible world governed by reason and moral values. The book's production, editing, and translations are first-rate, making this slim volume indispensable reading for scholars specializing in twentieth-century literature."-- "The European Legacy"

"Much more than a riveting travelogue, Travels in the Americas provides a glimpse into the mind of one of the last century's most astounding thinkers, a man whom communists, socialists, existentialists, and anti-colonialists all endeavored to call their own, but who always evaded their grasps. From France to the Americas and back again, he felt himself caught between two unfortunate places: one with an impossible past, the other with an impossible future."-- "France-Amérique"

"An elegant new translation."-- "London Review of Books"

"Bloom's translation is a model of tight writing... it reads briskly, as we would expect journal entries to read, and precisely, as we would expect of anything penned by Camus... Travels in the Americas is a small, beautiful gem, worthy of a large readership."-- "Great Lakes Review"

"An intimate glimpse into the psyche of a widely admired writer."-- "Wall Street Journal"

"With its ample photographs, rich introduction, and smooth-flowing, conversational translation, Travels in the Americas is an engaging travel account that reintroduces Albert Camus as both a man and an existentialist icon moving through North and South America in the postwar years."-- "Foreword Reviews"

"Nine months after the end of the Second World War, Camus crossed the Atlantic on the SS Oregon to New York, traveling between 'continents gone mad, ' as he put it. Three years later, he journeyed via Dakar to South America. This attractively illustrated new translation of the journals from those trips shows us an intensely curious, often solemn, and sometimes witty Camus as he attempts to understand the cultures he was encountering. As Alice Kaplan explains in her Introduction, the travel logs are an invitation to 'see the Americas, as if for the first time, through his eyes, ' They also chart the writer's transition towards literary celebrity and reveal the private doubts and needs that troubled him."-- "Edward J. Hughes, author of 'Albert Camus'"

About the Author

Albert Camus (1913-60) was a French philosopher, writer, and journalist, and one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century letters. Among his widely read and translated works, the most notable are his novels The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall and the philosophical works The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. Alice Kaplan is the Sterling Professor of French at Yale University. She is coauthor of States of Plague, with Laura Marris, and author of Seeing Baya: Portrait of an Algerian Artist in Paris and Looking for "The Stranger." She has been a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut. Ryan Bloom is a literary translator, fiction writer, and essayist from Washington, DC. His other translations of Camus's work include Caligula and Three Other Plays, The First Man: The Graphic Novel, and Notebooks 1951-1959.