Albert Camus’s 1947 novel La Peste (The Plague) is often described as an allegory for the struggle against fascism during the Second World War. But it may also be read in a more straightforward way, as the moving tale of how ordinary people deal, or fail to deal, with a sudden, lethal threat to their existence.
The story so far of the war in Ukraine satisfies both readings – although, sadly, the war is no fiction. Ukraine’s citizens were unexpectedly thrust into a life-or-death struggle with a brutal foe bent on their extinction as a nation. Recent battlefield successes reflect the admirable way they have met that challenge, at terrible human cost.
