An exhibition in Aix-en-Provence to mark the hundredth anniversary of Camus’s birth caused a scandal in the summer of 2012. Benjamin Stora was invited to devise the exhibition, which he duly did with Jean-Baptiste Péretié, but he was then abruptly ousted and replaced by Michel Onfray, who accepted the post without hesitation only to change his mind later.
 

Above and beyond polemics, this incident reveals the extent to which questions raised by the author of L’étranger create tensions to this day. This is clearly true of the whole question of colonialism and of the shadow cast by the Algerian war of independence in contemporary French society. But it is also true of the relationship between communism and socialism, of intellectual rigour within an editorial context, and also of the journalist’s role in how news is presented. A great many people would like to read Camus in their own, single-minded way, enlisting him to their political stance. But they are wasting their time; this now familiar “outsider”, this man stranded between two worlds, profoundly aware of otherness, is too complex to be reduced to any one cause or identity.

Here Benjamin Stora and Jean-Baptiste Péretié explore the apparent consensus and multiple attempts to capture Camus, to show us how and why this writer is still on fire.

Benjamin Stora is a historian and teaches at the university of Paris-XIII. He is the author of many books, including these titles published by Stock: Les trois exils. Juifs d’Algérie (2006), Les Guerres sans fin (2008), Le 89 arabe (dialogue avec Edwy Plenel, 2011) and Voyages en postcolonies. Viêt Nam, Algérie, Maroc (2012).

Jean-Baptiste Péretié is a documentary maker. His most notable work is Voyage au bout de Céline (2011), which relates the ideological trajectory of the writer Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, known as Céline. His documentaries are mostly broadcast by Arte and France Télévisions.