Camus: The Challenge of Dostoevsky

Presenting a study of Camus’s life-long fascination with the works of the Russian writer Feodor Dostoevsky, this book aims to demonstrate the ways in which Dostoevsky’s thought and fiction served to stimulate and crystallize Camus’s own thinking. Davison identifies the lines of divergence and counter-arguments which Camus produced as answers to the challenge of Dostoevsky’s Christian/Tzarist vision of life. He claims that Camus’s literary and philosophical texts can be read as precise and detailed replies to some of Dostoevsky’s central beliefs about immortality, religion and politics. The study ranges over the entirety of the works of both major writers.