The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a virulent plague. Cut off from the rest of the world, living in fear, they each respond in their own way to the grim challenge of the deadly bacillus. Among them is Dr Rieux, a humanitarian and healer, and it is through his eyes that we witness the devastating course of the epidemic. Written in 1947, just after the Nazi occupation of France, Camus" magnificent novel is also a story of courage and determination against the arbitrariness and seeming absurdity of human existence.