Actuelles II - Chroniques 1948-1953

First edition, one of the review copies.
A few marginal reading marks.
Bradel binding in raspberry-red half morocco, smooth spine with date at foot, marbled paper boards, original wrappers preserved, top edge gilt. Binding signed by P. Goy & C. Vilaine.
Signed autograph inscription from Albert Camus to Gilbert Sigaux, his fellow contributor to Combat: \"... avec l'affectueuse pensée de son vieux camarade...\"

A novelist, winner of the 1949 Prix Interallié and journalist for Combat, Sigaux had joined Camus in the activities of the Groupes de liaison internationale (International Liaison Groups).
 

The second volume of Camus's collected essays and commentaries, Actuelles II brings together his polemical writings from 1948 to 1953. At its heart are the « Lettres sur la révolte », in which Camus responds to the attacks provoked by L'Homme révolté: those of André Breton, the libertarians associated with Le Libertaire, Francis Jeanson and, through him, Sartre. His letter to the editor of Les Temps modernes, subsequently published under the title « Révolte et servitude », marked the definitive rupture between the two writers.

Although Gilbert Sigaux, like Camus, had worked as a journalist for Combat, and had published a highly favourable review of the first volume of Actuelles in its pages, Camus's presentation of this new collection of politically engaged writings was far more than a gesture of professional gratitude.

From November 1948 onwards, the two men were united in a new struggle, one fundamentally opposed to the Manichaean outlook for which Camus would later reproach Sartre:

« Il ne s’agit pas d’ajouter encore à la haine du monde et de choisir entre deux sociétés ».

This conviction that uncompromising revolt need not entail the rejection of others was one of the founding principles of the Groupes de liaison internationale, established in November 1948 at the initiative of the trade unionist Roger Lapeyre, with Camus at their centre. Camus drafted most of the manifesto, which Sigaux signed alongside him before becoming an active member of the organisation.

Together, they sought « de faire connaître en Europe l’existence des non-conformistes américains et des opposants russes (…) de rendre une voix enfin à tout ce qui, dans l’histoire déshonorée que nous vivons, donnera à des millions de solitaires des raisons lucides et valables d’espérer ». Meeting at the offices of Force ouvrière in the rue de l'Université, writers, trade unionists and libertarians worked to support Spanish Republicans and refugees from Eastern Europe. Between 1949 and 1950, they published four bulletins, one of which was devoted to forced labour in the USSR. Daniel Martinet, himself a member, would later write that their « seul ciment » was « la personnalité d’Albert Camus ». This humanist endeavour eventually came to an end following Camus's departure for South America and his illness in 1950, although, as Martinet recalled, « sans que les gens qui y avaient participé se perdent de vue » (cf. Maitron).

Actuelles II gives voice to the uncompromising yet fiercely independent political commitment that had brought the two men together, through public interventions and a steadfast opposition to totalitarianism: Camus's speech opposing Francoist Spain's admission to UNESCO, his address « Le pain et la liberté » to trade unionists in Saint-Étienne in May 1953, and his preface to Alfred Rosmer's memoir Moscou sous Lénine.

An important review copy of this veritable manifesto of political independence, personally inscribed by Camus to his « vieux camarade », a comrade in both the editorial battles of Combat and the wider struggle for their shared ideals.