[
The Plague] (1947) is Camus’s second work of fiction. It
was immediately successful and won a major literary prize soon after it appeared. It has been translated into at least forty-seven languages.
La Peste is classified as “chronicle”, rather like Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year, which Camus cites in the epitaph. It is supposedly the work of an initially unnamed narrator who recounts events in which he participated and records documents by others. It takes place in the Algerian city of Oran in 194*. The novel tells of the arrival of a plague, and the reactions of the citizens, to which are added the stories of several individuals, with their varying responses to the disaster. These individuals are treated episodically, appearing from time to time on a stage that is
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Citation: King, Adele. "La Peste". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 June 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11621, accessed 23 April 2024.]
