The Fall
Both late books study isolation and failed communication, but the collection changes voices and continents instead of remaining inside one monologue.
Read our take
Exile and the Kingdom
by Albert Camus
Six stories about people reaching toward belonging and finding that the distance remains.
- 1957
- Atmospheric
- Melancholy
- episodic
- spare
- lyrical
About Albert Camus
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeCamus’s only story collection, published in 1957. Its six stories move through Algeria, Paris and Brazil, following a traveler, a missionary, an artist, a teacher and others at moments of estrangement or failed connection. The range makes it a useful late-career survey after the major novels.
The story, in more detail
The collection contains six separate stories: 'The Adulterous Woman,' 'The Renegade,' 'The Silent Men,' 'The Guest,' 'Jonas, or the Artist at Work' and 'The Growing Stone.' They do not share a plot or recurring cast.[1]
Each protagonist is caught between isolation and some form of community. Janine experiences a private awakening during a trip with her husband; a missionary tells a violent, unstable account of failed conversion; workers return to a barrel-making shop after a strike; a schoolteacher is ordered to deliver a prisoner; a successful painter loses the space to work; and an engineer joins a Brazilian religious procession.[1]
The title names the collection's tension. A person may feel exiled from other people, from a homeland or from a meaningful life, while still sensing a possible 'kingdom' in solidarity, physical experience or creative attention.[1]
The six stories
'The Adulterous Woman' follows Janine on a sales trip into the Algerian interior with her husband Marcel. A nighttime visit to a desert fort briefly gives her a feeling of freedom that her marriage does not.[1]
'The Renegade' is the fevered monologue of a missionary who tried to impose his faith on a brutal desert city and was captured, tortured and converted to the worship he meant to destroy.[1]
'The Silent Men' follows Yvars and other barrel makers returning after an unsuccessful strike. Their employer's attempt at ordinary contact cannot overcome the anger and shame on both sides.[1]
'The Guest' places Daru, a teacher on an isolated plateau, between a French officer's order and an Arab prisoner's freedom. Daru refuses to choose for the prisoner, but the political conflict does not allow neutrality.[1]
'Jonas, or the Artist at Work' follows a painter whose success fills his apartment with visitors and obligations until he builds a tiny loft in which to work alone. 'The Growing Stone' sends the engineer d'Arrast to Iguape, Brazil, where he takes part in another man's religious promise.[1]
Themes and analysis
At the schoolhouse threshold
Daru welcomes the arrivals before learning what is being asked of him. Offering tea brings the prisoner’s bound hands into focus, and hospitality becomes a concrete act of loosening restraint. Yet the school is not outside the authority that brought the man there: its supplies come from the administration, and the rivers of France remain drawn on the classroom board. The encounter puts those functions in tension. A place that distributes food and teaches children is being asked to serve the police, while Daru insists that this is not his work.
A little room to work
Jonas builds the loft as though a change of space could repair his relation to work. The arrangement separates him from the household without making him independent: Louise brings food, and Rateau continues both visiting him and helping below. Their practical care complicates the apparent opposition between the solitary artist and other people. Near the end, the family’s ordinary sounds become welcome again, but the uncertain word on the canvas refuses to settle the problem. Physical closeness, withdrawal and affection have not been made to fit a simple formula.
Why we recommend it
Six forms of the same tension
The settings and plots change, but every story tests the distance between an isolated person and a community they may or may not join.
It is Camus at short-story scale
Each piece reaches a moral pressure point quickly, making the collection a varied alternative to the single voices of The Stranger and The Fall.
A range of places and lives
The movement between Algeria, Paris, and Brazil broadens the collection beyond a single setting or profession.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Janine
The traveler at the center of 'The Adulterous Woman,' dissatisfied with her marriage and briefly transformed by the desert night.
The unnamed missionary
The tortured and unreliable narrator of 'The Renegade,' speaking after his attempt to force a conversion ends in his own.
Yvars
An aging barrel maker in 'The Silent Men' who returns to work after a failed strike.
Daru
The isolated schoolteacher in 'The Guest,' ordered to escort an Arab prisoner to jail.
Gilbert Jonas
The painter in 'Jonas, or the Artist at Work,' whose success steadily removes the privacy needed to paint.
d'Arrast
The French engineer in 'The Growing Stone' who joins a Brazilian community through an act of physical solidarity.
Timeline
1950s
Albert Camus writes and revises the six stories during a period of growing conflict in Algeria.
1957
Gallimard publishes L’Exil et le royaume in France.
1958
Justin O'Brien's English translation appears as Exile and the Kingdom.
1960
Camus dies; this remains the final collection of fiction published during his lifetime.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Gallimard
- 1957
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 2007
- 9780307278586
- Carol Cosman
Reader reviews
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The First Man
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Nuptials
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Read our takeExile and the Kingdom: frequently asked questions
What stories are in Exile and the Kingdom?
The collection contains 'The Adulterous Woman,' 'The Renegade,' 'The Silent Men,' 'The Guest,' 'Jonas, or the Artist at Work' and 'The Growing Stone.'
When was Exile and the Kingdom published?
Gallimard first published L’Exil et le royaume in France in 1957.
Should I read Exile and the Kingdom first?
Usually not. Start with The Stranger, then read Exile and the Kingdom when you want this part of Camus’s work.
Are the stories connected?
They share themes of exile, failed connection and possible solidarity, but they do not share a plot or recurring characters.
What is The Guest about?
The Guest follows Daru, a schoolteacher ordered to take an Arab prisoner to jail. Daru gives the man a choice, but the story shows that colonial conflict makes his attempted neutrality impossible.
Is Exile and the Kingdom a novel?
No. It is Albert Camus's only collection of short fiction and contains six independent stories.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Exile and the Kingdom, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2The Guest — opening passage (English transcription)
WebsiteThePhilosopher.netUsed forPrimary English transcription for the illustrated story passage; not asserted to be the Carol Cosman edition listed above.
3The Artist at Work — English text transcription
WebsiteThePhilosopher.netUsed forPrimary English transcription for the illustrated story passage; not asserted to be the Carol Cosman edition listed above.
4Albert Camus – Bibliography
WebsiteNobel Prize OutreachUsed forUsed to place Exile and the Kingdom within Albert Camus's published work and verify its bibliographic context.
5Albert Camus
EssaysStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyUsed forUsed for independent biographical, archival, or historical context surrounding Albert Camus's career and the period in which Exile and the Kingdom appeared.
6Albert Camus – Biographical
BiographyNobel Prize Outreach, 1957Used forUsed to cross-check authorship, chronology, and the work's place in Albert Camus's wider catalogue.
7The Nobel Prize in Literature 1957
Official recordNobel Prize Outreach, 1957Used forUsed to verify Albert Camus's bibliography and place Exile and the Kingdom within the broader chronology of Albert Camus's career.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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