The handwritten manuscript for The First Man was found next to the crashed car that Camus died in. The unfinished autobiographical novel was published by his daughter, Catherine Camus, in 1994.

The novel tells the story of Jacques Cormery as he returns to Algeria to find out about his dead father.

Major characters

Jacques Cormery: a French-Algerian man searching for information about his deceased father

Lucie / Catherine Cormery: the mother of Jacques. She is a widow, partially deaf and mute, and lives in extreme poverty.

Henri Cormery: Jacques’s father. He died during the war in France.

Grandmother: Jacques’s grandmother on his mother’s side. She is very strict.

Pierre: Jacques’s school friend