Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall and The Rebel.
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response. Camus claims that the realization of the absurd does not justify suicide, and instead requires "revolt". He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. In the final chapter, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Elysium, otherwise known as the Elysian Fields or Elysian Plains, is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by some Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. It was initially separated from the Greek underworld – the realm of Hades. Only mortals related to the gods and other heroes could be admitted past the river Styx. Later, the conception of who could enter was expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic. They would remain at the Elysian Fields after death, to live a blessed and happy afterlife, and indulge in whatever they had enjoyed in life.
Sir Isaiah Berlin was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially by his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. Exploring the theme of love warped by greed and taking its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti, Fitzgerald spent years crafting the work prior to its publication.
The Man Who Planted Trees, also known as The Story of Elzéard Bouffier, is an allegorical tale by French author Jean Giono, published in 1953. It tells the story of one shepherd's long and successful singlehanded effort to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps, near Provence, throughout the first half of the 20th century. It was written in French, and first published in English. The story has become known worldwide and is seen as an inspiration for ecological regeneration brought about by man. In 1988, Frédéric Back won an Academy Award for the animated short film The Man Who Planted Trees. The film was published in two versions, French and English, and narrated respectively by actors Philippe Noiret and Christopher Plummer.
Jean Giono was a French writer who wrote works of fiction mostly set in the Provence region of France.
La Peau de chagrin, known in English as The Magic Skin and The Wild Ass's Skin, is an 1831 novel by French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). Set in early 19th-century Paris, it tells the story of a young man who finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire. For each wish granted, however, the skin shrinks and consumes a portion of his physical energy. La Peau de chagrin belongs to the Études philosophiques group of Balzac's sequence of novels, La Comédie humaine.
Edmund Valentine White III is an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer and an essayist on literary and social topics.
The Centaur is a novel by John Updike, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1963. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Portions of the novel first appeared in Esquire and The New Yorker.
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the Encyclopædia Britannica states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is therefore often published by the Communist Party or left-wing sympathizers, the proletarian novel has also been categorized without any emphasis on revolution, as a novel "about the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". This different emphasis may reflect a difference between Russian, American and other traditions of working-class writing, with that of Britain. The British tradition was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement, and socialism, amongst others. Furthermore, writing about the British working-class writers, H Gustav Klaus, in The Socialist Novel: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition (1982) suggested that "the once current [term] 'proletarian' is, internationally, on the retreat, while the competing concepts of 'working-class' and 'socialist' continue to command about equal adherence".
Colline is a 1929 novel by the French writer Jean Giono. It has also been published as Hill of Destiny. It tells the story of a small hamlet in Provence where the superstitious residents struggle against nature, as their settlement is struck by several misfortunes. Colline was Giono's debut novel. It is the first installment in the author's Pan trilogy; it was followed by the standalone novels Lovers are Never Losers and Second Harvest.
Marc Augier, better known by the pen name Saint-Loup, was a French anti-capitalist, later turned into fascist, politician, writer and mountaineer.
Theodore Lothrop Stoddard was an American historian, journalist, political scientist and white supremacist. Stoddard wrote several books which advocated eugenics, white supremacy, Nordicism, and scientific racism, including The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920). He advocated a racial hierarchy which he believed needed to be preserved through anti-miscegenation laws. Stoddard's books were once widely read both inside and outside the United States.
György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Soviet Marxist ideological orthodoxy. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.
Harvest is a 1937 French drama film directed by Marcel Pagnol, starring Fernandel, Orane Demazis, Marguerite Moreno and Gabriel Gabrio. The narrative revolves around a farming village where only three inhabitants remain, but they are told that if only one of them, Panturle, manages to find a wife, the village will be able to prosper again. The film is based on the 1930 novel Second Harvest by Jean Giono. It was released in France on 28 October 1937 and in the United States on 2 October 1939.
The Song of the World is a 1934 novel by the French writer Jean Giono. The narrative portrays a river and human vendettas as a part of nature. The story contains references to the Iliad. Its themes and view on nature were heavily inspired by Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass. It was adapted into the 1965 film Le Chant du monde, directed by Marcel Camus.
The Straw Man is a 1957 novel by the French writer Jean Giono. Its French title is Le Bonheur fou, which means "the mad happiness". The story is set in the 1840s and follows Angelo Pardi as he is caught up in plots leading up to the Italian revolution of 1848. The novel is a standalone sequel to The Horseman on the Roof, which is set earlier and also features Pardi as the main character. Several standalone sequels followed in what is known as the Hussar Cycle. The Straw Man was published in English in 1959, translated by Phyllis Johnson.
The Malediction is a 1952 novel by the French writer Jean Giono. It tells the story of a landowning family in Provence. The family suffers under a curse which takes different forms over the generations. An English translation by Peter de Mendelssohn was published in 1955.
Les Vraies Richesses is a 1937 book by the French writer Jean Giono. It is a celebration of the countryside, especially in the author's native Provence, which is contrasted with the city.
