Discursurile din Suedia

Albert Camus asks what artists owe society in two speeches. He attacks socialist realism, an approach to art. He also rejects efforts to make culture serve a set of beliefs. He asks how those of his time can fight hate and harsh rule. How can they defend each person’s worth? He seeks peace, but not at the cost of giving in. He wants closer ties between work and culture.

The book has his Stockholm speech after the Nobel award ceremony. It also has his December 1957 talk at Uppsala University. Both talks ask what place art holds in public life.

This edition joins both texts in Romanian for the first time. Marina Vazaca put them into Romanian from French and added notes. Carl Gustav Bjurström wrote the closing text, or afterword. The talks’ views on politics blocked a Romanian version before 1989. Public libraries in Romania limited access to the French edition. Readers had to get formal leave to read it.

Camus was French and was born in Algeria. He wrote novels and plays and worked in philosophy. He lived from 1913 to 1960. He earned his degree at the University of Algiers. He worked as a news writer at Alger républicain. In World War II, he joined the French Resistance. He also edited Combat, a paper that came out in secret. After the war, he wrote for the French press. He became a strong voice of the left that backed democratic rule. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, aged 44.