Études camusiennes (Camus Studies) recently published the proceedings of the 32nd International Colloquium of Dokkyo, hosted by Dokkyo University in Japan in 2021, as a special issue titled “Albert Camus: L’amour de vivre (Albert Camus: Love of Life).”
The colloquium invited Jason Herbeck, professor of French and chair of the world languages department, to present at the event and published his paper titled “‘L’exigence du bonheur’ dans ‘La mort heureuse:’ les ‘semailles splendides’ de la prise de conscience camusienne (‘The imperative of happiness’ in ‘A Happy Death:’ the ‘splendid seeds’ of Camusian consciousness)” in the special edition.
Herbeck’s article examines the French-Algerian Nobel laureat’s first completed novel, “La Mort heureuse (A Happy Death),” published posthumously in 1971. Herbeck writes that it “illustrates how the search for happiness upon which the protagonist embarks is linked to the tenets of consciousness Camus later articulated in his well-known philosophical essay, ‘Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus).’”