Albert Camus

Albert Camus (1913-1960), French novelist, essayist, and dramatist, regarded as one of the finest philosophical writers of modern France. His work, characterized by a vigorous, concise style, reflects the post-World War II philosophy of the absurd, the sense of alienation and disillusionment yet the assertion of the positive qualities of human dignity and fraternity.

Camus was born in Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria, on November 7, 1913, and educated at the University of Algiers. His studies were cut short because of a recurrence of tuberculosis. Active in social reform, he established an amateur theatre to bring worthwhile drama to working-class audiences; he also worked as a journalist, played in goal for the Algerian football team, and travelled extensively in Europe. In 1938 he published Noces (Weddings), a collection of essays incorporating reflections inspired by his reading and travels. In 1940 he moved to Paris and joined the staff of the newspaper Paris-Soir. During World War II he was active in the French Resistance and from 1944 to 1947 was editor of Combat, an underground paper.

An Algerian background provides the setting for Camus’s first published novel, L’Étranger (1942; The Outsider, 1946), and for most of his subsequent fiction. This work and the essay on which it is based, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942; The Myth of Sisyphus, 1955), reveal the influence of existentialism on his thought, although he had serious differences of opinion with the existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre. Of the plays that develop existentialist themes, Caligula (1944), produced in New York in 1960, is one of the best known. Although in the novel La Peste (1947; The Plague, 1948) Camus still was concerned with the fundamental absurdity of existence, he recognized human courage in the face of disasters. His concerns were always those of a moralist rather than a philosopher. His later works include the novel La Chute (1957; The Fall, 1957), also based on an earlier essay, L’Homme Révolté (1951; The Rebel, 1951); a play, L’État de Siège (1948; State of Siege, 1958); and a collection of stories, L’Exil et le Royaume (1957; Exile and the Kingdom, 1958), in various styles but reworking earlier ideas. Collections of his journalism came out under the titles Actuelles (3 vols., 1950, 1953, and 1958) and L’Été (Summer, 1954). A Happy Death (1971; trans. 1972), although posthumously published, is actually his first novel. His Carnets (Notebooks), covering the years 1935 to 1951, were also posthumously issued in two volumes (1962 and 1964; trans. 1963 and 1966). Camus, who was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature, was killed in a car accident at Villeblerin, France, on January 4, 1960. In 1994 his last, unfinished novel, Le Premier Homme (The First Man, 1995), was published to critical acclaim.