In his acceptance speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, Camus seems to allow his theoretical strictures to loosen, and an idea of hope that he never pursued in his philosophical writing seems to impose itself on him. Against his will, he invokes an altogether different hope: ‘the faint sound of beating wings’ and ‘the sweet stirrings of life and hope’.9 Here, hope is no longer resignation, avoidance or the renunciation of life; it is life itself, la vie même. Life and hope become one. To live means to hope.
