The First Man

In The First Man, Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormeryamp;mdash;a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mut mother.

The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellsprings of Camus's aestehtic powers and moral vision. A masterpiece...One of the most extraordinary evocations of childhood that exist in any language.