Paris: Elena Rui and Camus’s Widows

On 23 May 2026 at 5.30 pm at the headquarters of “L’Italie à Paris”, 5 bis, rue de la Fontaine au Roi, 75011 Paris, there will be a presentation of Elena Rui’s book, Vedove di Camus, Rome, L’Orma, 2026, a nominee for the 2026 Strega Prize. The author will be in conversation with Manuela Corigliano (Viceversa). The event is co-organised by Viceversa and L’Italie à Paris.

On 4 January 1960, the car driven by publisher Michel Gallimard crashed into a tree on a road in Burgundy. In the passenger seat, Albert Camus, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature three years earlier, died instantly, leaving the literary world in shock. Four women found themselves brutally bound together by their grief for the man they loved: his wife Francine Faure, the actress Catherine Sellers, the young Danish painter Mette Ivers, and the great actress Maria Casarès, whom Camus called ‘the One’. In this book, Elena Rui explores the voices and lives of these four women with finesse and precision.

Bookings at: contact@viceversa2026.com