The manuscript was found near the car crash that killed the 46-year-old author in 1960. His widow refused to publish the fragment, fearing that its first-draft roughness might further damage his reputation, then under attack from many French intellectuals. Since then, Camus’s standing has steadily improved. His first novel, “The Stranger,” is required reading in French schools and sells 200,000 copies a year. So when Camus’s daughter, Catherine, now 48, read the manuscript, reputation wasn’t an issue. “I thought it was a unique document because it was autobiographical,” she said, “so I decided it should be published.” (Knopf, Camus’s American publisher, plans to issue an English edition next year.) Even in its unfinished form, this story of a poor boy much like the young Camus growing up in Algeria allows us a rare glimpse into the life of an intensely private man. “For the first time,” says Camus biographer Roger Grenier, “he lets his feelings speak.”
