Camus, The Fest and politicization of disasters

Albert Camus' novel "Fest" features a variety of groups that respond to the disease. There are
different types of escape from the blocked city, resignation, and resistance to rescue by
organizing a health center. Published in the late 1940s, the book was very popular, but French
intellectuals were relatively cold-hearted. The reason was that the political message of the
novel was unclear.

Jean Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir, a leading intellectual couple at the time, harshly
criticized Camus for failing to establish a historical and political position only by portraying
the epidemic as a natural virus. In short, he did not assign responsibility to any party. Camus,
who was a better resident in World War II than anyone else, expected political clarity to
match his post-war career, but his work was quite different.

Camus was even awarded the Nobel Prize in literature as "The Pest" and "The Stranger"
became popular internationally, but he was not mainstream in French society. He ended his
life in a car accident in his late 40s. Hannah Arendt commented that Camus was the best
intellectual in Paris at the time. When all his generation was swept away by politics, Camus
was always against its power and pulled himself away. The political non-concepts and the
concept of disaster are also problematic, but extreme politicization should also be guarded.