Everyday life in Oran takes an ominous turn when dead rats begin to appear all of a sudden. Soon, their number becomes overwhelming and people start to die. Gradually, the rats disappear. Cats disappear. Dogs disappear. People continue to die. The landscape appears devoid of life. Resources become scarce. No one wants to stay but no one can leave. The city s gates are closed.

The Plague is a keen observation of daily life in quarantine. And much more. It is a story of our virtues and vices when we are put to the test; of our behavior when death is imminent. It is also viewed as an allegory of the French response to Nazi occupation of France in the World War II.

About the Author

Albert Camus was a French-Algerian writer, philosopher and journalist. He was born in Mondovi, French Algeria on November 7, 1913. Although not trained as a philosopher, he contributed towards the avant-garde twentieth-century philosophical ideas of Absurdism in the form of essays, novels, reviews and articles. He also became active in the resistance against the colonial French government and served as editor in-chief of the newspaper Combat from 1944 to 1947.