Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a French writer and philosopher, a representative of existentialism, and during his lifetime became popularly known as the “Conscience of the West.” He was the 1957 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature.

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Algiers, on the Saint-Paul farm near the settlement of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an agricultural worker of Alsatian origin, was killed at the Battle of the Marne at the beginning of World War I. His mother, Catherine Sintès, of Spanish nationality, moved with the children to the city of Algiers.

From 1932 to 1937 he studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. During his studies he read extensively, began keeping diaries, and wrote essays. In 1936–1937 he traveled through France, Italy, and the countries of Central Europe. In the senior years of university he became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935 he joined the French Communist Party in solidarity with the uprising in Asturias. He remained in the local branch of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for links with the Algerian People’s Party, being accused of “Trotskyism.” In 1936 he created an amateur “People’s Theater,” and organized, among other productions, a staging of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, in which he played Ivan Karamazov.

As early as 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and despite his recovery, he suffered for many years from the consequences of the illness. For health reasons he was denied postgraduate study, and for the same reason he was later not called up for military service.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algiers House of Culture for a time; in 1938 he was editor of the magazine Alger-Côte, and later of left-radical opposition newspapers. In the pages of these publications Camus at the time advocated state social policy and improved conditions for the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censorship after the start of World War II. During these years Camus wrote extensively, mainly essays and journalistic pieces. In January 1939 he wrote the first version of the play