Manuscript of Camus’s 'Call for a Civil Truce in Algeria' to be sold in France soon

The manuscript of the famous "Call for a civil Truce in Algeria" of Albert Camus, pronounced in Algiers on 22 January 1956, will be put up for sale on 13 May in Paris, announced Wednesday the auction house Artcurial. Confidentially taken from a brochure titled "Call of Albert Camus", then published in "Actuelles III chroniques algériennes" published by Gallimard in 1958, this ten-page document, part of the history of Algerian Liberation War "marks the culmination of the writer struggle to attempt to reconcile the communities of this North African country," said Artcurial. Under the heading of the Gallimard Book Shop, the manuscript drawn with fine and regular writing is full of numerous erasures that reflect the genesis of speech. Estimated at between €70,000 and 80,000, it is dedicated to "Evelyne and René Sintès / their brother in Algeria" and signed "Sintès-Camus." The name of this couple of friends is indeed the same as the maiden name of the mother of the author. On 16 January 1956, the Committee for a Civil Truce invited Camus to write and deliver this speech of the last chance. "No cause justifies the death of the innocent": on January 22 in front of the packed room of Circle of Progress in Algiers, Camus launches his famous call. On the outside, the tension is high. The extremists of French Algeria were uttering death threats. The writer, who has received Nobel literature Prize the following year, wants to "obtain that the ‘Arab movement’ and the French authorities (...) declare simultaneously that throughout the duration of the disorder, the civilian population is, for any occasion, respected and protected.