Published in 1947, The Plague by Albert Camus can be read in three dimensions, as the author himself mentioned in a letter. First, it is the product of Camus's own experience in the Résistance. Camus replaced the Nazis with the plague to represent the struggle against all forms of totalitarianism and war crimes. In addition, the plague serves as a "concrete illustration of the metaphysical problem of evil," an allegory for the violent disasters that befall humanity, embodying the inescapable absurdity. And the third, most straightforward reading is that of a story about the fight against an epidemic. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, Camus' The Plague has been read and reread around the world.
I have been involved in Camus research for a long time. After writing my third book on Camus, with no prospect of publication, I began translating for my own pleasure. It was a lucky coincidence that The Plague was eventually released by Iwanami Bunko during the pandemic.
When this book came out in April 2021, it was the first time in 70 years that a new translation had been published. I put special emphasis on making the book accessible so that readers would not give up halfway through. This novel, I believe, reveals its value only upon completion. I took particular care to ensure that readers would not stumble over difficult words, lose the flow of the narrative, or be confused about who was speaking in the dialogues. A French scholar noted that Camus is widely translated and read throughout the world because his themes are universal and his prose is "concise, clear, and unclouded." In this new translation, I aimed to achieve this in Japanese as well.