The plague writers who predicted today

‘In uncertain – indeed, weird – times like these, as we increase our social isolation to ‘flatten the curve’, literature provides escape, relief, comfort and companionship. Less comfortingly, though, the appeal of pandemic fiction has also increased. Many pandemic titles read like guide books to today’s situation. And many such novels give a realistic chronological progression, from first signs through to the worst times, and the return of ‘normality’. They show us we’ve been through this before. We’ve survived.’

Read here (BBC, April 14, 2020)

Timeless lessons from Albert Camus’ “The Plague” (published 1947)

‘There is no more important book to understand our times than Albert Camus's The Plague, a novel about a virus that spreads uncontrollably from animals to humans and ends up destroying half the population of a representative modern town. Camus speaks to us now not because he was a magical seer, but because he correctly sized up human nature. As he wrote: “Everyone has inside it himself this plague, because no one in the world, no one, can ever be immune”.’

View here (The School of Life, YouTube, April 1, 2020)