In view of the COVID-19 information, misinformation and toilet roll hysteria currently gripping the world, over coming weeks I will be channelling my quarantine curiosity into re-reading Albert Camus’s La Peste (The Plague), a story of an epidemic sweeping through the Algerian city of Oran. The novel examines the way in which living in an epidemic changes people, communities and relationships, and how different people seek to respond to the common threat.
I’ll be blogging through it from now until June, and I’d love to read along with you and compare notes. Grab yourself a copy in English or in French and start reading Chapter One for next week! It’s currently on sale on amazon.com for $3 kindle and $10 paper, 7,50€ for the paperback and 7,49€ for the kindle edition on amazon.fr. Audiobook versions are also available on Audible and elsewhere.
It’s on most of the “pandemic books reading lists” that are circulating at the moment (for example here and here), and if you need further convincing then here’s an article from The Guardian in 2015 entitled “Albert Camus’ The Plague: a story for our, and all, times”.
Finally, here’s a clip from France24 about how sales of La Peste are rocketing at the moment.
