The night of truth

The texts that made the Nobel laureate Albert Camus known and made him emerge as a moral and intellectual leader.

“On this unparalleled night, four years of a monstrous war and an unspeakable struggle conclude, in which France wrestled with its shame and rage. Those who never lost hope, neither in themselves nor in their country, find their reward under this sky. This night is well worth a world, it is the night of truth.”

In 1944, Albert Camus had already published The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, but it was his articles in Combat that made him known and made him emerge as a moral and intellectual leader. Between the autumn of 1943 and June 1947, he was editor-in-chief and editorialist for this Resistance newspaper. His texts offer us the lucid testimony of a journalist aware of his responsibilities both during the occupation and after it, when it was necessary to rethink daily life and at the same time sketch the future of France and Europe.

Committed to introducing morality into politics, Camus reacts to issues and events such as deportations, liberation, justice for collaborators, the return of prisoners of war, food shortages, the role of international institutions in the postwar period, colonial injustices (and, in particular, the problem of Algeria), and the situation of the press.

More than seventy years after their publication, these texts remain moving and very impressive, and we hear in them the passionate voice of a writer willing to participate in History with his intense desire for justice, freedom, and truth.

Reviews:
“Camus's articles are still relevant in an era in which liars once again govern and want to profit from their lies.”
Félix de Azúa, El País

“As Camus demonstrated, we can fight to tell the truth. Camus is a reference for our profession because he always said and wrote what he thought. He was an intellectual with ideas, but he never allowed his worldview to alter his observation of events.”
Pedro García Cuartango, El Mundo

“You just have to read it carefully for it to take on a voice and burst into the present, with the same passionate intonation as if what we are reading had just been written, with a clarity that has cleanly withstood the test of time. To be clear, for Camus, as for Orwell, was an aesthetic and political demand.”
Antonio Muñoz Molina, El País

“The value of this book is to show the everyday political thought of a great humanist when he shifted his attention from the triumph of the Resistance to the much more complicated task of building a new France from the spoils of war.”
San Francisco Chronicle

“It is astonishing to see how much the issues addressed by Camus anticipate and prefigure problems that continue to plague us. Camus never stays on the surface; he always seeks the root causes of human behavior.”
The New Republic

“Albert Camus called the twentieth century the 'century of fear', but he could also have referred to the twenty-first century in the same way. His editorials have astonishing resonances today.”
The Age

“A moving account of France during its most difficult years and, at the same time, the portrait of a brilliant and principled man confronting a slippery and inextricable reality.”
The National Post

“Extraordinary. The best political journalism. [...] These pieces still resonate strongly today in an era of global conflict.”
Choice