Conor Cruise O'Brien's penetrative reading of Albert Camus, Nobel laureate and author of L'Étranger and La Peste, was originally published in 1970. 'O'Brien's Camus is brilliant. While having been himself profoundly moved by Camus's work, he asks why students have so often misinterpreted him.' Marghanita Laski, The Times '[Camus] displays O'Brien's cultivated intelligence at its most joyous pitch, and . . . demonstrates his unique critical talent . . . [O'Brien] demonstrates that Camus was far from being an exemplar of the truly independent intellectual and that his conception of "Mediterranean culture" served to legitimise France's possession of Algeria . . . O'Brien's prose has a sweet rigour as he first explores Camus's sense of estrangement and unreality, and then places his work within a social context.' Tom Paulin, Times Literary Supplement