When he finally had an opportunity to explain why he distanced himself from the National Liberation Front, Camus remarked: “I must condemn a terrorism that works blindly in the streets of Algiers and one day might strike at my mother and my family. I believe in justice, but I will defend my mother before justice.”3 And in the uproar of criticism that followed, Camus continued to choose his mother. When Camus died in a car accident southeast of Paris, inside his briefcase was found the unfinished manuscript of his last novel, Le Premier homme (The First Man). Handwritten on the first page was a
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