States of Plague examines Albert Camus's novel as a palimpsest of pandemic life, an uncannily relevant account of the psychology and politics of a public health crisis.

States of Plague examines Albert Camus's novel as a palimpsest of pandemic life, an uncannily relevant account of the psychology and politics of a public health crisis.

As one of the most discussed books of the COVID-19 crisis, Albert Camus's classic novel The Plague has become a new kind of literary touchstone.

Surrounded by terror and uncertainty, often separated from loved ones or unable to travel, readers sought answers within the pages of Camus's 1947 tale about an Algerian city gripped by an epidemic. Many found in it a story about their own lives-a book to shed light on a global health crisis.