Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World

"The French writer Albert Camus is best known for his novels and philosophical works, which are among the most influential of the twentieth century. But his journals, which he kept from 1935 to 1959, offer an intimate glimpse into his thinking at its most personal. Beautifully retranslated by Ryan Bloom and supplemented by an introduction by Alice Kaplan, Travels in the Americas presents the journals that Camus wrote during his eventful visits to the United States in 1946 and to South America in 1949. When Camus sailed to the US in 1946, he was virtually unknown to American audiences. All that was about to change-The Stranger, his first book translated into English, was about to be published, and he would soon be a literary star. By 1949, when he set outfor South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus's journals from these two trips record his impressions, frustrations, and longings. Here are his vivid first impressions of New York City, his encounters with publishers and critics and assorted shipmates. Camus appears unguarded, his fallibility on full display. He is irritated by mediocrity and frustrated by his health. Yet he is also moved to rapture by landscapes, by women, or simply by the bounty of his own philosophical imagination. Long unavailable in English and now freshly translated and annotated, these journals let readers walk beside the existentialist thinker as he experiences the changes in his own life and in the world around him, openly describing his passions and preoccupations on the way, all in his inimitable style".
Albert Camus’s lively journals from his eventful visits to the United States and South America in the 1940s, available again in a new translation. In March 1946, the young Albert Camus crossed from Le Havre to New York. Though he was virtually unknown to American audiences at the time, all that was about to change.The Stranger, his first book translated into English, would soon make him a literary star. By 1949, when he set out on a tour of South America, Camus was an international celebrity. Camus’s journals offer an intimate glimpse into his daily life during these eventful years and showcase his thinking at its most personal a form of observational writing that the French call choses vues (things seen).  Camus’s journals from these travels record his impressions, frustrations, joys, and longings. Here are his unguarded first impressions of his surroundings and his encounters with publishers, critics, and members of the New York intelligentsia. Long unavailable in English, the journals have now been expertly retranslated by Ryan Bloom, with a new introduction by Alice Kaplan. Bloom’s translation captures the informal, sketch-like quality of Camus’s observations by turns ironic, bitter, cutting, and melancholy and the quick notes he must have taken after exhausting days of travel and lecturing. Bloom and Kaplan’s notes and annotations allow readers to walk beside the existentialist thinker as he experiences changes in his own life and the world around him, all in his inimitable style.