The First Man.

In The First Man Albert Camus tells the story of Jacques Cormery, a boy who lived a life much like his own. Camus summons up the sights, sounds, and textures of a childhood circumscribed by poverty and a father's death yet redeemed by the austere beauty of Algeria and the boy's attachment to his nearly deaf-mute mother. The result is a moving journey through the lost landscape of youth that also discloses the wellspring of Camus' aesthetic powers and moral vision.

"A masterpiece...One of the most extraordinary evocations of childhood that exists in any language."
-- Boston Globe

"Serves as a kind of magical Rosetta stone to Camus's entire career, illuminating both his life and his work with stunning candor and passion."
-- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"The most ambitious and compassionate of his books...The First Man has resurrected the author as dramatically as a revisitation."
-- The Nation