For the first installment, I had the honor and pleasure of chatting with and asking Dr. Kimberly Baltzer-Jaray the 20 Questions. Dr. Baltzer-Jaray holds her Ph.D. from Wilfrid Laurier University. Dr. Baltzer-Jaray has studied philosophy at The University of Guelph and The University of Waterloo. She is a very accomplished Camus scholar and also a highly respected writer and thinker in phenomenology circles in North America and Europe.
She now teaches at King's University College at Western University.
Enjoy this engaging scholar and her thoughts on Camus.
Update!
I eliminated one question and replaced it. To be consistent, I asked Dr. Baltzer-Jaray to answer it and she did, with excellence.
Question: Do you consider Camus an African writer? Why or why not?
Answer:
Okay …
That’s a tough one to answer. I want to say yes though i would add the designation of 'African Colonial Writer'. I think we have to remember the ‘colonial’ part because his upbringing and experience of growing up in a colonized North African country is part of his lived experience, it’s in his writing and in his characters’ attitudes and dynamics, and his attitude about France and French culture, and that is unique - it’s not just an African viewpoint. I definitely think he is better identified as an African Colonial Writer than as a French writer.
Note: I think we have to use colonial rather than postcolonial - the former i see as the writings of a person in an environment that is after the colonizer has left even if they grew up under the colonial rule - but Camus' writing takes place while the colonizer is still present during his life and after his death (he died in 1960 and the conflict ended i think in 1962). Even though he left Algeria she still wasn’t out from under the rule of France yet.
