Albert Camus: A Biography [Paperback]

Herbert R. Lottman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1996

When Albert Camus died in a car crash in January 1960 he was only 46 years old - already a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and a world figure - author of the enigmatic The Stranger, the fable called The Plague, but also of the combative The Rebel - which attacked the 'politically correct' among his contemporaries.

Thanks to his early literary achievement, his work for the underground newspaper Combat and his editorship of that daily in its Post-Liberation incarnation, Camus' voice seemed the conscience of postwar France. But it was a very personal voice that rejected the conventional wisdom, rejected ideologies that called for killing in the cause of justice. His call for personal responsibility will seem equally applicable today, when Camus' voice is silent and has not been replaced. The secrecy which surrounded Algerian-born Camus' own life, public and private - a function of illness and psychological self-defense in a Paris in which he still felt himself a stranger - seemed to make the biographer's job impossible.

Lottman's Albert Camus was the first and remains the definitive biography - even in France. On publication it was hailed by New York Times reviewer John Leonard: "What emerges from Mr. Lottman's tireless devotions is a portrait of the artist, the outsider, the humanist and skeptic, that breaks the heart." In The New York Times Book Review British critic John Sturrock said: Herbert Lottman's life (of Camus) is the first to be written, either in French or English, and it is exhaustive, a labor of love and of wonderful industry." When the book appeared in London Christopher Hitchens in New Statesman told British readers: "Lottman has written a brilliant and absorbing book... The detail and the care are extraordinary... Now at last we have a clear voice about the importance of liberty and the importance of being concrete." The new edition by Gingko Press includes a specially written preface by the author revealing the challenges of a biographer, of some of the problems that had to be dealt with while writing the book and after it appeared.

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Gingko Press (July 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3927258067
• ISBN-13: 978-3927258068
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #891,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Camus, Albert

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the Single Best Camus Biography, December 19, 2000

By 

"dccustomer" (Washington, DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Albert Camus: A Biography (Paperback)

I think I most love this magnificent book because the chilly reception it has received mirrors the deeply ironic incivility the French elite reserved for Camus himself. One can love Camus for his words, his insight, and his passion, but I think I love him most for the fact that he was hated by idiots. It is this theme that runs throughout Lottman's wonderful biography, and it also seems to describe to an extent Lottman's own experience.

For nearly the last quarter of Camus's short life, he lived in disfavor amongst the Paris literati. And for what? Because he, virtually alone amongst French intellectuals, recognized early on the horror that was the true nature of the regime of Joseph Stalin(socialism being virtually an article of faith with the likes of Sartre and others in France at the time).

Lottman himself seems to have had a rather similar experience in his publication of this book. As he points out in his preface to this second edition, a cottage industry has evolved in France and elsewhere in Camus scholarship and criticism. However, though that body of work is deeply indebted to Lottman's research, his preeminent role is rarely acknowledged. I think this is probably because, like Camus, Lottman is an outsider. Neither man was a French native (Camus was an Algerian of mixed French-Spanish descent, Lottman is an American expatriate living in Paris) and neither is an academic by trade (Camus was a newspaper editor, novelist and a man of the theatre, while Lottman is a journalist). Thus, Lottman has seemed at times as unwelcome amongst the French elite as Camus did himself. Again the irony is too much; Lottman has received comparatively little recognition even though he himself is an extremely important cornerstone of current Camus research.

Anyway, this book for whatever reason has received little more attention here in the United States than it has gotten anywhere else, and I think that is a shame. It is a wonderful, readable book. Most importantly, it is non-judgmental and it is very deferential. By that I mean that Lottman nowehere preaches to us how we should understand Camus; as he himself says, the essence of an artist is not in his biography, but in his works. It is long, but has only that level of detail befitting an intellectual biography of this caliber.

For anyone who really wants to understand Camus's literature, a thorough understanding of his life--like Lottman's--is priceless.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very thorough, but gets bogged down with detail, May 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Albert Camus: A Biography (Paperback)

Although an accomplished and thorough book, it sometimes get bogged down in detail. However, it is a very carefully compiled and analytical book. Good selection of pictures and details of others artists in Camus' life. I enjoyed it greatly.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well written, interesting, but the author doesn't understand French, December 22, 2009

By 

Kirk McElhearn "Freelance writer and translator" (A town in the French Alps) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Albert Camus: A Biography (Paperback)

This is an odd book. While it's well written and thoroughly researched, there are glaring errors in the author's translations from the French. For example, there are two instances (in the first couple hundred pages; I've only read that much so far) where he uses the false friend "sympathetic" for "sympatique", which means "nice": "I'll introduce him to some sympathetic people." There are many examples of mis-translations, which stand out because they are common errors (I'm fluent in French and translate from French to English) even if the original texts aren't included. Other translations are clunky and in some cases make no sense.

Now all this could be moot if the book were reliable, but as I go on reading it, I wonder just how well the author understood the texts he read in his research or the people he met and talked with. I've noticed a number of bits that are different between this bio and the one by Olivier Todd, written decades later, suggesting that the latter work, in spite of its faults, may at least be more reliable.

As I said in my review of the Todd book, it's a shame that there is no good biography of Camus in either French or English.