Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the main guiding light (sustaining Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. Camus was a 2nd youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (after Rudyard Kipling) when he received a award within 1957. He is as well a shortest-lived of any literature laureate to date.

Early years

Albert Camus was innate within Mondovi, Algeria to a French Algerian (pied noir) settler family. His mother was of Spanish extraction. His father, Lucien, died in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during the First World War. Camus sleep in unfortunate conditions when you took his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers.

Inside 1923, Camus was accepted into the lycée and eventually to the University of Algiers. Nonetheless, he contracted tuberculosis in 1930, which put an end to his football activities (he had been the goalkeeper for the university team) and forced him to produce his studies the a share-half-time pursuit. He took odd jobs including personal tutor, car parts clerk, & act for the Meteorological Institute. He completed his licence first state philosophie (BA) in 1935; in Could of 1936, he successfully presented his thesis in Plotinus, Néo-Platonisme et Pensée Chrétienne for his ''diplôme d'études supérieures'' (about tantamount to an M.The. by thesis).

Camus joined a French Communist Party around 1934, apparently for concern over a political situation in Spain (which eventually resulted in the Spanish Civil War) rather than trend lines for Marxist-Leninist doctrine. Within 1936, a independence-minded Algerian Communist Person (PCA) was founded. Camus joined a activities of Le Parti du Peuple Algérien, which got him into condition using his communist person comrades. Following, he wwhen denounced as "Trotskyite", which did not endear him to Stalinist communism.

Within 1934, he married Simone Hie, but a marriage ended due to Simone's morphine addiction. Around 1935, he founded Théâtre du Travail — "Worker's Theatre" — (renamed ''Théâtre delaware fifty'Equipe inside 1937), which survived until 1939. From either 1937 to 1939, he wrote for the socialist paper, Alger-Republicain, & his act involved an account of the Arabs world health organization sleep in Kabyles in poor conditions, which apparently prices him his job. From either 1939 to 1940, he briefly wrote for the similar paper, Soir-Republicain. He was rejected from either a French army because of his t.b..

Inside 1940, Camus married Francine Faure & he began to operate for Paris-Soir magazine. In the number one stage of World War II, the and so-supposed Phony War stage, Camus was a pacifist. Nevertheless, he was around Paris to witness how a Wehrmacht took over. In December 19, 1941, Camus witnessed a execution of Gabriel Peri, an event which Camus later said crystallized his uprising against a Germans. Afterward he moved to Bordeaux alongside the rest of the staff of Paris-Soir. In that month he finished his foremost books, The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus. He returned briefly to Oran, Algeria in 1942.

Literary career
In a period of a war Camus joined the French Resistance cell Combat'', which published an underground newspaper of the same title. This class action worked against a Nazis, & around it Camus assumed a moniker "Beauchard". Camus became a paper's editor inside 1943, & whenever a Allies freed Paris Camus reported on the survive of the combat. He sooner or later resigned from either Combat within 1947, once it became the commercial paper. It was on this text that he became familiar with Jean-Paul Sartre.

Fallowing a war, Camus became 1 member of Sartre's retinue & frequented Café de Flore on the Boulevard St. Germain in Paris. Camus besides toured a United States to lecture about French existential philosophy. Although he leaned left politically, his strong criticisms of communistic philosophy did non win him any friends in the communist parties & sooner or later likewise alienated Sartre.

Within 1949 his t.b. returned & he sleep in seclusion for deuce years. Around 1951 he published The Rebel, a philosophic analysis of rebellion & revolution which manufactured clear his rejection of communism. A book upset numbers of of his colleagues & coeval inside France & led to the final split sustaining Sartre. A dour reception depressed him & he began instead to translate plays.

Camus's virtually all important contribution to philosophy was his idethe of a the absurd, the symptom of my want for clarity & meaning inside a globe & affliction that offers neither, which he explained in The Myth of Sisyphus and incorporated into many of his more works. A bit of would argue that Camus is better described non as an existentialist but as an absurdist.

In the Fifties Camus devoted his effort to human rights. Around 1952 he resigned from either his operate for UNESCO when the UN accepted Spain as a member under the leadership of General Franco. Within 1953 he was one of a couple of left-winger world health organization criticized Soviet methods to crush a worker's strike within East Berlin. Around 1956 he protested similar methods inside Hungary.

He maintained his pacifism & trend lines to capital punishment everywhere in the world.

Whilst a Algerian War of Independence began in 1954 it presented the moral quandary for Camus. He identified by owning pied-noirs, and defended the French government on the evidence that rebellion of its Northward African colony was really an integral a share of the a 'fresh Arab imperialism' led by Egypt & an 'anti-American' offence orchestrated by Russia to 'encircle Europe' & 'isolate a United States' (Actuelles III: Chroniques Algeriennes, 1939-1958). Although favouring greater Algerian autonomy or even federation, though not good-all-out independence, he believed that a pied-noirs & Arabs can co-survive. When you took a war he advocated civil armistice that would spare a civilians, which wwhen rejected by two sides world health organization regarded it as jerky. Behind a scenes, he began to act clandestinely for jailed Algerians world health organization faced a demise penalty.

From either 1955 to 1956 Camus wrote for L'Express. Inside 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, officially not for his novel A Fall, published a last month, however for his writings against execution in the essay "Réflexions Sur la Guillotine". Whilst he spoke to students at a University of Stockholm, he defended his apparent inactivity in the Algerian question & stated that he was caring what may happen to his mother world health organization however sleep in Algeria. Apparently French left-wing intellect utilized this when a second pretext to ostracize him.

Camus died in January 4, 1960 in a car accident touching Sens, in the toponym "Le Grand Frossard". Ironically, Camus experienced uttered the remark sooner witharound his life that the virtually all absurd way to die would become in a car accident. A driver of the Facel Vega, Michel Gallimard -- his publisher and close friend -- as well perished in the accident. Camus was interred in the Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France. He was survived by his twin toddlers, Catherine & Jean, world health organization hang on to a right of first publication to his function.

Summary of Absurdism

Camus particularly is considered a mastermind of absurdism, a philosophy related to Existentialism. Absurdism contends that mortal beings come fundamentally irrational & man suffering is the effect of vain tries by souls to call for even understanding or meaning in the absurd abysm of being.

Camus claimed that a single confessedly philosophic wonder was that of suicide. That is, should you bother residing the least bit or even only put to death ourselves? Camus argued that historically virtually all population develop either believed that life is nonmeaningful & concluded pro suicide, or even own created occasionally unreal meaning rather religion to fill their populates. Camus claims that there is a third guide: you might underst& that life is nonmeaningful and yet keep residing. Population world health organization opt for this third stock come "absurd heroes."

A Rebel, a Don Juan, & a Creative person come tierce numbers that Camus identifies when absurd heroes. Every one population finds meaning within his or even her have pursuits & so satisfy a lesson of the Greek mythic figure Sisyphus, world health organization was "condemned" to click a boulder higher capitol hill for eternity fully caring that the boulder would only fall the hill when soon when he on the face of it finished his project..

Famous works
Novels
The Stranger (''L'Étranger, also translated when A Outsider) (1942) The Plague (La Peste) (1947) The Fall (La Chute) (1956) A Happy Death (La Mort heureuse) (early version of The Stranger, published posthumously 1970) The First Man (Le premier homme) (incomplete, promulgated posthumously 1995)

Short stories
Exile and the Kingdom (L'exil et lupus erythematosus royaume) (1957) The Guest

Non-fiction
Betwixt and Between (L'envers et fifty'endroit, when well translated as A Wrong Side & the Right Side) (collection, 1937) Neither Victim Nor Executioner (Combat) (1946) The Myth of Sisyphus (Le Mythe de Sisyphe) (1942) The Rebel (L'Homme révolté) (1951) Notebooks 1935-1942 (Carnets, mai 1935 -- fevrier 1942) (1962) Notebooks 1943-1951 (1965)

Plays
Caligula (performed 1945, written 1938) The Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu) (1944) State of Siege (L'État diamond state siège) (1948) The Just Assassins (Les Justes) (1949)

Collections
Youthful Writings Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (1961 - Collection of essays selected by the creator)

Movies
Luchino Visconti made a movie of The Stranger in 1967, starring Marcello Mastroianni. Luis Puenzo and Felix Monti were responsible for the modern day rendition of The Plague inside 1991. A movie star William Hurt.

Bibliography
Heiner Wittmann, Albert Camus. Kunst und Lesson. Dialoghi/Dialogues. Literatur und Kultur Italiens und Frankreichs.'' Hrsg. Dirk Hoeges, Peter Lang, Frankfurt/M u.the. 2002