Summary
Albert Camus: Exile and Kingdom
Camus' only book of short prose, published in 1957, at the height of his creativity, consists of six stories about people in various forms of exile. Derived from different masterfully assessed perspectives, the stories in Exile and Kingdom show individuals in painful disagreement with the world around them, starting with a woman who must betray her husband in order to feel freedom, through an artist who struggles to follow his own aspirations and at the same time respect the expectations that society places before him, all the way to a missionary who is brutally forced to worship a tribal fetish. We find all the heroes of the collection at critical moments in their lives, precisely when they make unusual decisions, seemingly even harmful, but which will allow them to spend part of their lives, even if only for a few moments, the way they want. Whether set in North Africa, Paris or Brazil, the stories of Exile and Kingdom explore aspects of spiritual exile and man's constant search for an inner realm in which to be reborn.
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