The Guest (short story)
The French title "L'Hôte" translates into both "the guest" and "the host" which ties back to the relationship between the main characters of the story.
Camus employs this short tale to reflect upon issues raised by the political situation in French North Africa.
In particular, he explores the problem of refusing to take sides in the colonial conflict in Algeria, something that mirrors Camus' own non-aligned stance which he had set out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
Daru inquires about the crime the Arab committed and Balducci says that he slit his cousin's throat in a fight for some grain, and adds that the prisoner is probably not a rebel.
[3] There, fragments of right-wing French settlers called for his assassination, while unseen Algerian revolutionaries spied on his daily movements.
Through these experiences, one can examine how the escalating violence between these two forces, with civilian casualties becoming the most common occurrence, displayed Camus' sense of individual freedom that is ultimately reflected in his work.
As a journalist in Kabylie, Camus saw the Berbers suffer from a prolonged drought and the lack of interest exhibited by the metropolitan French toward their plight.
Literary scholars have suggested that Camus, through his portrayal of the Arab prisoner, who is depicted as being "rather stupid, and even slightly bestial," believed that indigenous peoples were unprepared for the freedom they sought.
[5] In his own political writings, such as his Algerian Chronicles, Camus even seems to suggest that a confederation made up of France and its former colonies would be the ideal, rather than letting Algeria go entirely independent, largely because he feared that the lower-class settlers would suffer as a result of this change.
Because the French title "L'Hôte" can be translated as meaning either host or guest, it works as an intentional pun that has a significant effect on the overall theme.
According to Camus scholar and biographer, Philip Thody, by giving the story the title of "The Host," emphasis is placed on Daru, as the European coloniser.
Anders Österling, the secretary of the Swedish Academy, notably attributed Camus' Algerian heritage as being fundamental to his many achievements.
In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Camus specifically asked to be called a French Algerian, thereby refusing to choose one country over the other.
Documentary filmmaker, Yazid Ait Mahieddine, claims Camus to be "the single reason people outside Algeria know about this country...He is our only ambassador."
While he continues to be taught across the world, with "The Guest" being one of his most anthologized stories, Camus is still not celebrated within Algeria, with many of his books being hard to find.
"[6] In fact, many, including Tunisian writer Albert Memmi, saw Camus as well-intentioned, if not a little misguided, in his attempt to refrain from choosing a side in the conflict but still saw him as a colonizer.
[5] These same criticisms that Camus struggled with during his lifetime, and still loom large over his legacy today, can be made against Daru who ends up alienating himself from both sides by refusing to stray from his own code of ethics, even at his personal expense.
