Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in French Algeria, and he died on January 4, 1960. He was a French philosopher, novelist, author, playwright, journalist, and political activist. In 1957, at the age of 44, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the second-youngest person to receive this award and the first winner born in Africa. His famous works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall, and The Rebel.
Camus was born to parents from France in Algeria. He grew up in a poor area and later studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. In 1940, during World War II, he was in Paris when Germany invaded France. Camus tried to escape but eventually joined the French Resistance, where he worked as the editor-in-chief of Combat, a secret newspaper. After the war, he became a well-known public figure and gave speeches worldwide. He married twice but had relationships outside of marriage.
Camus was politically active and opposed Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union because of their strict control over people’s lives. He believed in moral principles and supported ideas that focused on workers’ rights. He also worked with groups that aimed to unite European countries. During the Algerian War (1954–1962), he did not take sides in the conflict. Instead, he believed Algeria should be a place where many cultures and beliefs coexisted. Most people disagreed with this view.
In philosophy, Camus helped develop the idea of absurdism. Some people think his work shows he was an existentialist, but Camus never agreed with that label.
Biography
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in a working-class area of Mondovi, which is now called Dréan in French Algeria. His mother, Catherine Hélène Camus (born Sintès), was French with ancestors from the Balearic Islands in Spain. She was deaf and could not read or write. Camus never met his father, Lucien Camus, a French farmer who died in battle while serving in a military unit called the Zouaves in October 1914 during World War I. Camus, his mother, and other family members lived with few basic necessities during his childhood in the Belcourt neighborhood of Algiers. Camus was born to French parents in Algeria, a French colony from 1830 to 1962. His grandfather, along with many others, had moved to Algeria in the early 1800s for better opportunities. Because of his background, Camus was called a pied-noir, a term for people of French or European descent born in Algeria. His identity and difficult childhood influenced his later life. However, Camus was a French citizen and had more rights than Arab and Berber Algerians under a system called indigénat. During his childhood, he enjoyed playing football and swimming.
In 1924, Camus received a scholarship to study at a prestigious secondary school near Algiers because of his teacher, Louis Germain. Germain noticed Camus’s intelligence and eagerness to learn. Germain even gave Camus free lessons to help him prepare for the scholarship exam, even though Camus’s grandmother wanted him to work to support the family. Camus always respected Germain and later dedicated his Nobel Prize speech to him. After learning about the Nobel Prize, Camus wrote:
“But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.”
In a letter from April 30, 1959, Germain wrote to Camus, calling him “my little Camus” and expressing his love for his former student.
Camus played as a goalkeeper for the Racing Universitaire d'Alger junior team from 1928 to 1930. He loved the teamwork and shared goals of football. Reporters often praised him for his passion and bravery. However, his football dreams ended when he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease that spreads through the air. Camus later compared football to life, saying the simple rules of the game contrasted with the complex rules of society.
In 1930, at age 17, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Because the disease is contagious, he moved to live with his uncle Gustave Acault, a butcher, who influenced him. During this time, Camus began studying philosophy with his teacher, Jean Grenier. He was inspired by ancient Greek thinkers and the writer Friedrich Nietzsche. Because of his illness, Camus could only study part-time and worked odd jobs, such as tutoring, selling car parts, and helping at a weather institute.
In 1933, Camus enrolled at the University of Algiers and earned a degree in philosophy in 1936 after completing a thesis on the philosopher Plotinus. He became interested in early Christian thinkers but was influenced by Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, who promoted ideas about life being difficult and God not existing. Camus also studied writers like Stendhal, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Kafka. That same year, he met Simone Hié, who later became his first wife.
In 1934, Camus was in a relationship with Simone Hié. Simone used morphine, a drug, to relieve pain from her menstrual cycle. Camus’s uncle Gustave did not approve of the relationship, but Camus married Hié to help her overcome her addiction. Later, Camus discovered she was also in a relationship with her doctor, and they divorced.
In early 1935, Camus joined the French Communist Party (PCF) to fight inequality between Europeans and native Algerians, even though he was not a Marxist. He said communism could help prepare people for more spiritual work. Camus left the party a year later. In 1936, the Algerian Communist Party (PCA) was formed, and Camus joined it after his teacher, Grenier, advised him. Camus helped organize the Théâtre du Travail, a workers’ theater. He also worked with the Algerian People’s Party (PPA), a group that supported ending French rule in Algeria. As tensions grew, the PCA and PPA split, and Camus was expelled from the PCA for disagreeing with its policies. These events made Camus more committed to human dignity and less trusting of systems that prioritized efficiency over fairness. He continued working with theater and renamed his group Théâtre de l'Equipe. Some of his plays later inspired his novels.
In 1938, Camus worked for a newspaper called Alger républicain, which opposed fascism. He also criticized French rule in Algeria after seeing how harshly Arabs and Berbers were treated. The newspaper was banned in 1940, and Camus moved to Paris to work as a layout editor for Paris-Soir. In Paris, he wrote his first major works: the novel L'Étranger (The Stranger), the essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), and the play Caligula. These works explored themes of life’s meaninglessness.
When World War II began, Camus tried to join the army but was rejected because of his past tuberculosis. As German forces advanced, Camus fled Paris and moved to Lyon, where he married pianist and mathematician Francine Faure on December 3, 1940. Camus and Faure returned to Algeria, where he taught in schools. Because of his health, he moved to the French Alps for medical care. There, he wrote his second major works: the novel La Peste (The Plague) and the play Le Malentendu (The Misunderstanding). By 1943, Camus was well-known for his earlier writing. He returned to Paris, where he became friends with philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and joined a group of intellectuals that included Simone de Beauvoir and André Breton. He also had a romantic relationship with actress María Casares.
Camus actively supported the French resistance against Nazi Germany. After arriving
Literary career
Albert Camus's first published work was a play titled Révolte dans les Asturies (Revolt in the Asturias), written with three friends in May 1936. The play focused on a 1934 uprising by Spanish miners, which was violently stopped by the Spanish government, leading to between 1,500 and 2,000 deaths. In May 1937, Camus wrote his first book, L'Envers et l'Endroit (Betwixt and Between, also known as The Wrong Side and the Right Side). Both works were published by a small publishing house owned by Edmond Charlot.
Camus organized his writing into three groups of works, each containing a novel, an essay, and a play. The first group, called the "absurd" cycle, included the novel L'Étranger, the essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe, and the play Caligula. The second group, the "revolt" cycle, included the novel La Peste (The Plague), the essay L'Homme révolté (The Rebel), and the play Les Justes (The Just Assassins). The third group, the "love" cycle, included the novel Nemesis. Each group explored a specific theme using stories from ancient myths and references to religious stories.
The books in the first group were published between 1942 and 1944, but the ideas behind them were developed earlier, starting at least as far back as 1936. Camus used this group to ask questions about how people live, describe the world as a place without clear meaning, and warn about the dangers of systems that control people completely.
Camus began writing the second group while he was in Algeria in late 1942, just as German forces reached North Africa. In this group, he used the story of Prometheus, a figure who stood up for human rights, to explore the differences between revolution and rebellion. He examined rebellion’s deeper ideas, its connection to politics, and how it fits into modern times, history, and the idea of a world without a god.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Camus collected and published his views on peace in a book called Actuelles III: Chronique algérienne 1939–1958 (Algerian Chronicles). He later chose to stay away from the Algerian War because it caused him great mental stress. He then focused on writing plays and the third group, which explored themes of love and the Greek and Roman goddess Nemesis, known as the goddess of revenge.
Two of Camus’s works were published after his death. The first, La mort heureuse (A Happy Death), was written between 1936 and 1938. It features a character named Patrice Mersault, who is similar to the main character in The Stranger. Scholars have debated how closely the two books are connected. The second work was an unfinished novel, Le Premier homme (The First Man), published in 1994. It was about Camus’s childhood in Algeria and led to new discussions about his views on colonialism.
Political stance
Camus believed that morality should guide political decisions. He acknowledged that moral values can change over time but disagreed with the classical Marxist idea that history and economic systems determine morality.
Camus was strongly opposed to Marxism–Leninism, which he viewed as a form of control, particularly in the Soviet Union. He criticized those who supported the Soviet model and called their belief that forced obedience equals freedom. Camus supported libertarian socialism and argued that the Soviet Union was not socialist and the United States was not liberal. His criticism of the Soviet Union led to disagreements with other left-wing figures, including his friend Jean-Paul Sartre.
During World War II, Camus worked against the Nazi occupation of France by writing for and editing the Resistance journal Combat. He criticized French collaborators with Nazi Germany, stating that courage was the only moral value in such times. After France was freed, Camus initially believed the country needed a strong leader like Saint-Just but later changed his mind after seeing the harshness of postwar trials. He then became a lifelong opponent of the death penalty.
Camus supported anarchist ideas, especially in the 1950s, when he believed the Soviet model was morally wrong. He opposed exploitation, authority, private property, and centralized government but did not support revolution. He distinguished between rebellion, which arises from anger over the world’s lack of meaning, and political rebellion, which responds to threats against individual dignity. Camus rejected political violence except in rare cases and condemned revolutionary violence, which he believed harmed innocent people.
Some scholars, like David Sherman, describe Camus as an anarcho-syndicalist, while Graeme Nicholson calls him an existentialist anarchist. The anarchist André Prudhommeaux introduced Camus to anarchist groups in 1948. Camus wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La Révolution prolétarienne, and Solidaridad Obrera, which was linked to the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).
During the Algerian Revolution (1954–1962), Camus remained neutral. He opposed the violence of the National Liberation Front (FLN) but recognized the injustices of French colonial rule. He supported Pierre Mendès France’s Unified Socialist Party (PSU), which aimed for peace, and an Algerian activist named Aziz Kessous. Camus tried to negotiate a truce in Algeria but faced distrust from all sides. During his 1957 Nobel Prize speech, he criticized the idea that violence equates to justice, saying, “If that is justice, then I prefer my mother.” Some critics called this response biased and colonialist.
Camus strongly opposed nuclear weapons and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the 1950s, he focused on human rights and resigned from UNESCO in 1952 after the organization accepted Spain under General Francisco Franco. Camus remained against the death penalty worldwide and co-wrote an essay titled Réflexions sur la peine capitale with Arthur Koestler, published in 1957.
Camus and Albert Einstein helped organize the Peoples’ World Convention (PWC), also called the Peoples’ World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, between 1950 and 1951.
Role in Algeria
Albert Camus was born in Algeria to French parents. He grew up in France and experienced the unfair treatment that Arabs and Berbers faced in France. However, he was not part of the wealthy class. As a child, he lived in very poor conditions, but because he was a French citizen, he had the rights that French citizens were supposed to have. Arabs and Berbers in Algeria did not have these same rights.
Camus strongly supported the idea of a "new Mediterranean Culture." He believed this culture should include the many different ethnic groups in Algeria and reject "Latinité," an idea that some French people in Algeria supported. This idea was linked to harmful beliefs, such as support for fascism and antisemitism. Camus believed the "new Mediterranean Culture" was based on humanistic values from ancient Greece, which he saw in the everyday lives of people around the Mediterranean Sea. In 1938, he gave a speech called "The New Mediterranean Culture," which explained his views in detail. He also supported a plan to give Algerians full French citizenship, arguing that it was fair and equal. In 1939, he wrote articles for a newspaper called Alger républicain about the terrible living conditions in the Kabylie highlands. He called for urgent changes in education, economy, and politics to help these people.
In 1945, after a violent uprising in Algeria known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre, Camus was one of the few reporters from France to visit the region. He wrote articles describing the situation and urged the French government to make changes that would meet the needs of Algerians.
When the Algerian War started in 1954, Camus faced a difficult choice. He felt connected to the French people in Algeria, like his own parents, and supported the French government’s actions against the rebellion. He believed the Algerian uprising was part of a larger effort by Arab countries, led by Egypt, and was also linked to Russia’s plan to challenge Western powers. While he wanted more freedom for Algeria, he did not support full independence. He believed that French people and Algerians could live together peacefully. During the war, he proposed a plan to protect civilians, but both sides refused to accept it. Secretly, he helped Algerians who were in prison and facing the death penalty. His ideas were criticized by some on the left and later by scholars like Edward Said, who argued that Camus’s writings ignored or downplayed the experiences of Algeria’s Arab population. Camus once said that the conflict in Algeria "affected him as others feel pain in their lungs."
Philosophy
Although Camus is most closely linked to absurdism, he is often grouped with existentialists, a label he refused several times. Camus stated that his philosophical influences came from ancient Greek thinkers, Nietzsche, and 17th-century moralists. Existentialism, however, developed from 19th- and early 20th-century philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard, Karl Jaspers, and Martin Heidegger. Camus also claimed that his book The Myth of Sisyphus criticized certain parts of existentialism. He rejected existentialism as a philosophy, but his criticism mainly focused on Sartrean existentialism and, to a lesser extent, religious existentialism. Camus believed that the emphasis on history by Marx and Sartre conflicted with his view of human freedom. Scholars like David Sherman suggest that the rivalry between Sartre and Camus also influenced Camus’s rejection of existentialism. David Simpson notes that Camus’s humanism and belief in human nature made him different from the existentialist idea that existence comes before essence.
Camus’s philosophy centered on questions about life’s meaning. He explored the absurdity of life and its inevitable end in death through his works. Camus believed that the absurd—life’s lack of meaning or humanity’s inability to find meaning—was something people should accept. His rejection of Christianity and focus on individual moral freedom and responsibility showed similarities with other existential writers. Camus addressed a key existential question: suicide. He wrote, “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.” He viewed suicide as a possible response to life’s absurdity.
Many existentialist writers discussed the concept of the Absurd, each offering their own interpretations. Kierkegaard believed the absurdity of religious truths made it hard for people to reach God through reason. Sartre saw the absurdity in individual experiences. Camus’s ideas about the Absurd began in his early works, including The Myth of Sisyphus, his major work on the topic. In 1942, he published The Stranger, a story about someone living an absurd life. He also wrote a play about the Roman emperor Caligula, which explored absurd logic and was performed in 1945. His early thoughts appeared in his first essay collection, Betwixt and Between, in 1937. Later, in Noces (Nuptials) in 1938, Camus expressed the idea of the Absurd more clearly. He also explored the Absurd in The Plague.
Camus agreed with Sartre’s definition of the Absurd: “That which is meaningless. Thus, man’s existence is absurd because his contingency finds no external justification.” The Absurd arises when humans, living in an indifferent universe, realize that human values lack external support. Camus explained that the Absurd comes from the “confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.” Even though the Absurd is unavoidable, Camus did not support nihilism. Instead, he asked, “Why should someone continue to live?” He rejected suicide as a solution, calling it a rejection of human values and freedom. Camus believed people should accept the Absurd and live with it.
Camus disliked being called a “philosopher of the absurd” and showed less interest in the topic after publishing The Myth of Sisyphus. Scholars sometimes refer to “Camus’s Absurd” as the “Paradox of the Absurd” to distinguish his ideas.
Camus argued for resisting oppression, injustice, or anything that disrespects human dignity. However, he set limits on rebellion. In The Rebel, he detailed his views on this topic. He built on the ideas of the Absurd from The Myth of Sisyphus but expanded further. In the introduction, he wrote, “I revolt, therefore we exist,” showing the shared human condition. Camus also explained the difference between revolution and rebellion, noting that rebellions can become oppressive. He stressed the importance of ethics in revolution. Camus asked, “Can humans act ethically in a silent universe?” He answered yes, as the awareness of the Absurd creates moral values and sets action limits. Camus divided rebellion into two types: metaphysical rebellion, which is “the movement by which man protests against his condition and against the whole of creation,” and historical rebellion, which seeks to change the world by making metaphysical rebellion real. In this effort, the rebel must balance the world’s evil with the harm rebellion might cause and avoid unnecessary suffering.
Legacy
Camus's novels and philosophical essays continue to be important. After he died, people's interest in his work increased when the New Left became popular and later decreased. When the Soviet Union fell apart, people became interested again in his different approach to communism. He is known for his skeptical humanism and for supporting political tolerance, dialogue, and civil rights.
Even though Camus was connected to anti-Soviet communism, including ideas related to anarcho-syndicalism, some people who support free-market policies have tried to link him to their beliefs. For example, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed moving Camus's remains to the Panthéon. This idea was criticized by Camus's family members who are still alive and made many people on the Left upset.
Tributes
In Tipasa, Algeria, within the Roman ruins, facing the sea and Mount Chenoua, a stele was built in 1961 to honor Albert Camus. The stele includes a quote from his work Noces à Tipasa: "I understand here what is called glory: the right to love beyond measure" (French: Je comprends ici ce qu'on appelle gloire : le droit d'aimer sans mesure).
A stamp featuring his image was released by the French Post on June 26, 1967.