Albert Camus

A 20th-century postcard of the University of Algiers

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in a working-class neighbourhood in Mondovi (present-day Dréan), in French Algeria. His mother, Catherine Hélène Camus (née Sintès), was French with Balearic Spanish ancestry. He never knew his father, Lucien Camus, a poor French agricultural worker killed in action while serving with Zouaves, in October 1914, during World War I. Camus, his mother and other relatives lived without many basic material possessions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers. Camus was a second-generation French inhabitant of Algeria, a French territory from 1830 until 1962. His paternal grandfather, along with many others of his generation, had moved to Algeria for a better life during the first decades of the 19th century. Hence, he was called pied-noir, ''black foot''—a slang term for people of French and other European descent born in Algeria. His identity and poor background had a substantial effect on his later life.[3] Nevertheless, Camus was a French citizen and enjoyed more rights than Arab and Berber Algerians under indigénat.[4] During his childhood, he developed a love for football and swimming.[5]

Under the influence of his teacher Louis Germain, Camus gained a scholarship in 1924 to continue his studies at a prestigious lyceum (secondary school) near Algiers.[6] In 1930, at the age of 17, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis.[5] Because it is a transmitted disease, he moved out of his home and stayed with his uncle Gustave Acault, a butcher, who influenced the young Camus. It was at that time he turned to philosophy, with the mentoring of his philosophy teacher Jean Grenier. He was impressed by ancient Greek philosophers and Friedrich Nietzsche.[5] During that time, he was only able to study part-time. To earn money, he took odd jobs: as a private tutor, car parts clerk, and assistant at the Meteorological Institute.[7]

In 1933, Camus enrolled at the University of Algiers and completed his licence de philosophie (BA) in 1936; after presenting his thesis on Plotinus.[8] Camus developed an interest in early Christian philosophers, but Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer had paved the way towards pessimism and atheism. Camus also studied novelist-philosophers such as Stendhal, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Kafka.[9] In 1933, he also met Simone Hié, then a partner of a friend of Camus, who would become his first wife.[7]

Camus played goalkeeper for the Racing Universitaire d'Alger junior team from 1928 to 1930.[10] The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and common purpose appealed to him enormously.[11] In match reports, he was often praised for playing with passion and courage. Any football ambitions, however, disappeared when he contracted tuberculosis.[10] Camus drew parallels among football, human existence, morality, and personal identity. For him, the simplistic morality of football contradicted the complicated morality imposed by authorities such as the state and Church.[10]

In 1934, aged 20, Camus was in a relationship with Simone Hié.[12] Simone had an addiction to morphine, a drug she used to ease her menstrual pains. His uncle Gustave did not approve of the relationship, but Camus married Hié to help her fight her addiction. He subsequently discovered she was in a relationship with her doctor at the same time and the couple later divorced.[7]

Camus joined the French Communist Party (PCF) in early 1935. He saw it as a way to "fight inequalities between Europeans and 'natives' in Algeria," even though he was not a Marxist. He explained: "We might see communism as a springboard and asceticism that prepares the ground for more spiritual activities." Camus left the PCF a year later.[13] In 1936, the independence-minded Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was founded, and Camus joined it after his mentor Grenier advised him to do so. Camus's main role within the PCA was to organise the Théâtre du Travail ("Workers' Theatre"). Camus was also close to the Parti du Peuple Algérien (Algerian People's Party (PPA)), which was a moderate anti-colonialist/nationalist party. As tensions in the interwar period escalated, the Stalinist PCA and PPA broke ties. Camus was expelled from the PCA for refusing to toe the party line. This series of events sharpened his belief in human dignity. Camus's mistrust of bureaucracies that aimed for efficiency instead of justice grew. He continued his involvement with theatre and renamed his group Théâtre de l'Equipe ("Theatre of the Team"). Some of his scripts were the basis for his later novels.[14]

In 1938, Camus began working for the leftist newspaper Alger républicain (founded by Pascal Pia) as he had strong anti-fascist feelings, and the rise of fascist regimes in Europe was worrying him. By then, Camus had developed strong feelings against authoritative colonialism as he witnessed the harsh treatment of the Arabs and Berbers by French authorities. Alger républicain was banned in 1940 and Camus flew to Paris to take a new job at Paris-Soir as editor-in-chief. In Paris, he almost completed his "first cycle" of works dealing with the absurd and the meaningless—the novel L'Étranger (The Outsider (UK), or The Stranger (US)), the philosophical essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus) and the play Caligula. Each cycle consisted of a novel, an essay and a theatrical play.[15]

Soon after Camus moved to Paris, the outbreak of World War II began to affect France. Camus volunteered to join the army but was not accepted because he once had tuberculosis. As the Germans were marching towards Paris, Camus fled. He was laid off from Paris-Soir and ended up in Lyon, where he married pianist and mathematician Francine Faure on 3 December 1940.[16] Camus and Faure moved back to Algeria (Oran) where he taught in primary schools.[17] Because of his tuberculosis, he moved to the French Alps on medical advice. There he began writing his second cycle of works, this time dealing with revolt—a novel La Peste (The Plague) and a play Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding). By 1943 he was known because of his earlier work. He returned to Paris where he met and became friends with Jean-Paul Sartre. He also became part of a circle of intellectuals including Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, and others. Among them was the actress María Casares, who would later have an affair with Camus.[18]

Camus took an active role in the underground resistance movement against the Germans during the French Occupation. Upon his arrival in Paris, he started working as a journalist and editor of the banned newspaper Combat. He continued writing for the paper after the liberation of France.[19] Camus used a pseudonym for his Combat articles and used false ID cards to avoid being captured. During that period he composed four Lettres à un Ami Allemand (Letters to a German Friend), explaining why resistance was necessary.[20]

External video
Presentation by Olivier Todd on Albert Camus: A Life, December 15, 1997, C-SPAN

After the War, Camus lived in Paris with Faure, who gave birth to twins, Catherine and Jean, in 1945.[21] Camus was now a celebrated writer known for his role in the Resistance. He gave lectures at various universities in the United States and Latin America during two separate trips. He also visited Algeria once more, only to leave disappointed by the continued oppressive colonial policies, which he had warned about many times. During this period he completed the second cycle of his work, with the essay L'Homme révolté (The Rebel). Camus attacked totalitarian communism while advocating libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism.[22] Upsetting many of his colleagues and contemporaries in France with his rejection of communism, the book brought about the final split with Sartre. His relations with the Marxist Left deteriorated further during the Algerian War.[23]

Camus was a strong supporter of European integration in various marginal organisations working towards that end.[24] In 1944, he founded the Comité français pour la féderation européenne—(CFFE (French Committee for the European Federation))—declaring that Europe "can only evolve along the path of economic progress, democracy, and peace if the nation-states become a federation."[24] In 1947–48, he founded the Groupes de Liaison Internationale (GLI) a trade union movement in the context of revolutionary syndicalism (syndicalisme révolutionnaire).[25] His main aim was to express the positive side of surrealism and existentialism, rejecting the negativity and the nihilism of André Breton. Camus also raised his voice against the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the totalitarian tendencies of Franco's regime in Spain.[24]

Camus had numerous affairs, particularly an irregular and eventually public affair with the Spanish-born actress María Casares, with whom he had extensive correspondence.[26] Faure did not take this affair lightly. She had a mental breakdown and needed hospitalisation in the early 1950s. Camus, who felt guilty, withdrew from public life and was slightly depressed for some time.[27]

In 1957, Camus received the news that he was to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This came as a shock to him. He was anticipating André Malraux would win the prestigious award. At age 44, he was the second-youngest recipient of the prize, after Rudyard Kipling, who was 42. After this he began working on his autobiography Le Premier Homme (The First Man) in an attempt to examine "moral learning". He also turned to the theatre once more.[28] Financed by the money he received with his Nobel Prize, he adapted and directed for the stage Dostoyevsky's novel Demons. The play opened in January 1959 at the Antoine Theatre in Paris and was a critical success.[29]

Simone Weil

During these years, he published posthumously the works of the philosopher Simone Weil, in the series "Espoir" ("Hope") which he had founded for Éditions Gallimard. Weil had great influence on his philosophy,[30][31] since he saw her writings as an "antidote" to nihilism.[32][33] Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times".[34]

Albert Camus's gravestone

The bronze plaque on the monument to Camus in the town of Villeblevin, France. Translated from French, it reads: "From the General Council of the Yonne Department, in homage to the writer Albert Camus whose remains lay in vigil at the Villeblevin town hall on the night of 4 to 5 January 1960"

The monument to Camus built in Villeblevin, where he died in a car crash on 4 January 1960

Camus died on 4 January 1960 at the age of 46, in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin. He had spent the New Year's holiday of 1960 at his house in Lourmarin, Vaucluse with his family, and his publisher Michel Gallimard of Éditions Gallimard, along with Gallimard's wife, Janine, and daughter. Camus's wife and children went back to Paris by train on 2 January, but Camus decided to return in Gallimard's luxurious Facel Vega FV2. The car crashed into a plane tree on a long straight stretch of the Route nationale 5 (now the RN 6 or D606). Camus, who was in the passenger seat, died instantly.[35] Gallimard died five days later, although his wife and daughter were unharmed.

144 pages of a handwritten manuscript entitled Le premier Homme (The First Man) were found in the wreckage. Camus had predicted that this unfinished novel based on his childhood in Algeria would be his finest work.[21] Camus was buried in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Vaucluse, France, where he had lived.[36] His friend Sartre read a eulogy, paying tribute to Camus's heroic "stubborn humanism".[37] William Faulkner wrote his obituary, saying, "When the door shut for him he had already written on this side of it that which every artist who also carries through life with him that one same foreknowledge and hatred of death is hoping to do: I was here."[38]

Even though Camus is mostly connected to absurdism,[75] he is routinely categorized as an existentialist, a term he rejected on several occasions.[76]

Camus himself said his philosophical origins lay in ancient Greek philosophy, Nietzsche, and 17th-century moralists whereas existentialism arises from 19th- and early 20th-century philosophy such as Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, and Heidegger.[77] He also said his work, The Myth of Sisyphus, was a criticism of various aspects of existentialism.[78] Camus was rejecting existentialism as a philosophy, but his critique was mostly focused on Sartrean existentialism, and to a lesser extent on religious existentialism. He thought that the importance of history held by Marx and Sartre was incompatible with his belief in human freedom.[79] David Sherman and others also suggest the rivalry between Sartre and Camus also played a part in his rejection of existentialism.[80] David Simpson argues further that his humanism and belief in human nature set him apart from the existentialist doctrine that existence precedes essence.[81]

On the other hand, Camus focused most of his philosophy around existential questions. The absurdity of life, the inevitable ending (death) is highlighted in his acts. His belief was that the absurd—life being void of meaning, or man's inability to know that meaning if it were to exist—was something that man should embrace. His anti-Christianity, his commitment to individual moral freedom and responsibility are only a few of the similarities with other existential writers.[82] More importantly, Camus addressed one of the fundamental questions of existentialism: the problem of suicide. He wrote: "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide."[83] Camus viewed the question of suicide as arising naturally as a solution to the absurdity of life.[47]

Many existentialist writers have addressed the Absurd, each with their own interpretation of what it is and what makes it important. Kierkegaard explains that the absurdity of religious truths prevents us from reaching God rationally.[84] Sartre recognizes the absurdity of individual experience. Camus's thoughts on the Absurd begin with his first cycle of books and the literary essay The Myth of Sisyphus, (Le Mythe de Sisyphe), his major work on the subject. In 1942, he published the story of a man living an absurd life in The Stranger. He also wrote a play about the Roman emperor Caligula, pursuing an absurd logic, which was not performed until 1945. His early thoughts appeared in his first collection of essays, L'Envers et l'Endroit (Betwixt and Between) in 1937. Absurd themes were expressed with more sophistication in his second collection of essays, Noces (Nuptials) in 1938. In these essays, Camus reflects on the experience of the Absurd.[85] Aspects of the notion of the Absurd can be found in The Plague.[86]

Camus follows Sartre's definition of the Absurd: "That which is meaningless. Thus man's existence is absurd because his contingency finds no external justification".[84] The Absurd is created because man, who is placed in an unintelligent universe, realises that human values are not founded on a solid external component; or as Camus himself explains, the Absurd is the result of the "confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."[87] Even though absurdity is inescapable, Camus does not drift towards nihilism. But the realization of absurdity leads to the question: Why should someone continue to live? Suicide is an option that Camus firmly dismisses as the renunciation of human values and freedom. Rather, he proposes we accept that absurdity is a part of our lives and live with it.[88]

The turning point in Camus's attitude to the Absurd occurs in a collection of four letters to an anonymous German friend, written between July 1943 and July 1944. The first was published in the Revue Libre in 1943, the second in the Cahiers de Libération in 1944, and the third in the newspaper Libertés, in 1945. The four letters were published as Lettres à un ami allemand (Letters to a German Friend) in 1945, and were included in the collection Resistance, Rebellion, and Death.

Camus regretted the continued reference to himself as a "philosopher of the absurd". He showed less interest in the Absurd shortly after publishing Le Mythe de Sisyphe. To distinguish his ideas, scholars sometimes refer to the Paradox of the Absurd, when referring to "Camus's Absurd".[89]

Camus articulated the case for revolting against any kind of oppression, injustice, or whatever disrespects the human condition. He is cautious enough, however, to set the limits on the rebellion.[90] L'Homme révolté (The Rebel) explains in detail his thoughts on the issue. There, he builds upon the absurd (described in The Myth of Sisyphus) but goes further. In the introduction, where he examines the metaphysics of rebellion, he concludes with the phrase "I revolt, therefore we exist" implying the recognition of a common human condition.[91] Camus also delineates the difference between revolution and rebellion and notices that history has shown that the rebel's revolution might easily end up as an oppressive regime; he therefore places importance on the morals accompanying the revolution.[92] Camus poses a crucial question: Is it possible for humans to act in an ethical and meaningful manner, in a silent universe? According to him the answer is yes, as the experience and awareness of the Absurd creates the moral values and also sets the limits of our actions.[93] Camus separates the modern form of rebellion into two modes. First, there is the metaphysical rebellion, which is "the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the whole of creation." The other mode, historical rebellion, is the attempt to materialize the abstract spirit of metaphysical rebellion and change the world. In this attempt, the rebel must balance between the evil of the world and the intrinsic evil which every revolt carries, and not cause any unjustifiable suffering.[94]

• A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse) (written 1936–38, published 1971)
• The Stranger (L'Étranger, often translated as The Outsider. An alternate meaning of "l'étranger" is "foreigner" ) (1942)
• The Plague (La Peste) (1947)
• The Fall (La Chute) (1956)
• The First Man (Le premier homme) (incomplete, published 1994)

• Exile and the Kingdom (L'exil et le royaume) (collection, 1957), containing the following short stories:
  • "The Adulterous Woman" (La Femme adultère)
  • "The Renegade or a Confused Spirit" (Le Renégat ou un esprit confus)
  • "The Silent Men" (Les Muets)
  • "The Guest" (L'Hôte)
  • "Jonas, or the Artist at Work" (Jonas, ou l'artiste au travail)
  • "The Growing Stone" (La Pierre qui pousse)

• Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism (Métaphysique chrétienne et néoplatonisme) (1935): the thesis that enabled Camus to teach in secondary schools in France

• Betwixt and Between (L'envers et l'endroit, also translated as The Wrong Side and the Right Side) (collection, 1937)
• Nuptials (Noces) (1938)
• The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1942)
• The Rebel (L'Homme révolté) (1951)
• Algerian Chronicles (Chroniques algériennes) (1958, first English translation published 2013)
• Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (collection, 1961)
• Notebooks 1935–1942 (Carnets, mai 1935 — fevrier 1942) (1962)
• Notebooks 1942–1951 (Carnets II: janvier 1942-mars 1951) (1965)
• Lyrical and Critical Essays (collection, 1968)
• American Journals (Journaux de voyage) (1978)
• Notebooks 1951–1959 (2008). Published as Carnets Tome III: Mars 1951 – December 1959 (1989)
• Correspondence (1944–1959) The correspondence of Albert Camus and María Casares, with a preface by his daughter, Catherine Camus (2017)

• Caligula (performed 1945, written 1938)
• The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu) (1944)
• The State of Siege (L'État de Siège) (1948)
• The Just Assassins (Les Justes) (1949)
• Requiem for a Nun (Requiem pour une nonne, adapted from William Faulkner's novel by the same name) (1956)
• The Possessed (Les Possédés, adapted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel Demons) (1959)

• The Crisis of Man (Lecture at Columbia University) (28 March 1946)
• Neither Victims nor Executioners (Series of essays in Combat) (1946)
• Why Spain? (Essay for the theatrical play L'Etat de Siège) (1948)
• Summer (L'Été) (1954)[24]
• Reflections on the Guillotine (Réflexions sur la guillotine) (Extended essay, 1957)[103]
• Create Dangerously (Essay on Realism and Artistic Creation, lecture at the University of Uppsala in Sweden) (1957)[104]

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• Zaretsky, Robert (7 November 2013). A Life Worth Living. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-72837-0.

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