Albert Camus: Czech Testimony

Prague, 16 September 2007

I perfectly remember one Thursday afternoon, in 1963. (Thursday was the day—the one—when the new books were available)

In front of the bookshop a lot of people were queuing. I was there to buy the Czech version of The Plague, announced since a while but censored twice. Finally it was on sale.

I read the whole night.

Oran was my country, jailed behind walls, forced to live without any chance to leave. Oran, my city suffering of the plague, where my (our) life was setting, where we had to exist, to struggle against fear and despair, to work, to live, to love—and to keep be honest.

Doctor Bernard Rieux—and journalist Raymond Rambert—were my brothers.

So I helped dozens and dozens of people to read The Plague, included low-class people, simple persons to whom the sobriety and simplicity of Camus´ style was meaningful.

Few years after, during the cultural thaw, it began possible to read his book in French.

Today most of them are available in Czech. I continue to read and appreciate his works, particularly The Myth of Sisyphus. Few times ago, I had the occasion to read The First Man. The beauty of the story-telling of his Algerian childhood impressed me.

But The Plague remains to be my heart-book.

Dear Roselyne, I am old, sick and too tired to express all the meaning of his books to me. Those short lines are a poor tribute to the man and the writer, Albert Camus, who enriched my life.

Kisses

Letter of Jarmilla Najbrtova-Lorencova, previous worker in the French library in Prague to Roselyne Chenu, secretary-general of "Fondation pour une entraide intellectuelle européenne".
Translated from the French by Guillaume Basset