The fall

In a sailors' bar in Amsterdam, a man who introduces himself as a judge-penitent strikes up a conversation with a stranger. Between glasses of gin and wanderings through the streets of that city of concentric canals, reminiscent of the circles of hell, he recalls his past life as a respectable Parisian lawyer, unsurpassed in defending noble causes and in amorous conquests. But as the confession unfolds, ambiguities accumulate, hidden motives are revealed, triumphs collapse.

A scathing narrative, brilliantly ironic, The Fall describes a journey of decadence into the darkest infamies of modern man. First published in 1956, it was the last fictional book released by Albert Camus during his lifetime.