Exile and the Kingdom

Set across North Africa, Paris, and Brazil, the six stories in this remarkable collection explore themes of spiritual exile and humanity’s enduring search for a place of inner renewal.

Told through a range of vividly drawn perspectives, the stories portray individuals struggling to reconcile themselves with the worlds they inhabit. In one, a woman finds herself surrendering to the vastness of a desert night in a moment that betrays her marriage. In another, an artist wrestles with the tension between his personal ambitions and the expectations imposed by society. Elsewhere, a missionary who has been violently forced into the worship of a tribal fetish is left clinging to only a faint remnant of his former identity.

Together, these narratives reveal Albert Camus at the height of his literary power, crafting profound reflections on alienation, identity, and the human longing for meaning.

Now, on the 50th anniversary of the book's publication, Carol Cosman's new translation recovers a literary treasure for our time.

Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.