The Plague was written by the Nobel prizewinner Albert Camus, who was one of the chief exponents of existentialism in France after the Second World War. The story takes place in a north African city called Oran, where the French have a strong colonial administration. A local doctor becomes concerned when rats suddenly begin dying in the street. Then people fall ill, with symptoms which suggest that bubonic plague has broken out. At first the authorities want to hush up the problem, for fear of the city being quarantined. Eventually Rieux, the doctor, persuades them that they must act on the information they possess, even if the city becomes isolated from the outside world.

The narrative follows six main characters as the plague takes hold of the city. Each has to make decisions about what he is going to do in the face of the dangerous challenge; two are separated from their loved ones, and one is resolved to escape from the city, by bribing the guards. The novel is often interpreted as an allegory of the situation of France when it was invaded by Germany in the war. Those who band together to fight the plague and minister to the sick are like the Resistance, running huge risks in the hopes of overcoming the enemy and restoring their community's life to normalcy. The novel also examines the morality of capital punishment, and the role of an authoritarian church in a time of crisis.