About the work
The First Man (French "Le Premier Homme") is Albert Camus's unfinished autobiographical novel, whose manuscript was found after his death in a car accident in 1960 and published only in 1994; it underlies various stage versions. The work depicts Camus's childhood in colonial Algeria.
Plot
The adult Jacques Cormery, Camus's alter ego, sets out in search of the father he never knew—he fell in the First World War when Jacques was one year old. The search leads him back to his childhood in the poverty of Algiers: to his mute, almost illiterate mother, his strict grandmother, the formative teacher who recognised his talent. In vivid images emerges the portrait of a boy who grows up without a father, without money, but full of hunger for life between the cultures of North Africa, having to create his own world.
Cultural significance
The First Man is regarded as Camus's most personal and mature work, a tender declaration of love to his origins and his mother. The fragment offers deep insight into the roots of his thinking about poverty, dignity, and the search for meaning. Despite its incompleteness it is counted among the great texts of French literature and widely adapted for the stage; the 2011 film carried it to a broad audience.