Works by Camus. Albert Camus - famous French writer and philosopher

French writer and thinker, Nobel Prize laureate (1957), one of the brightest representatives of the literature of existentialism. In his artistic and philosophical work, he developed the existential categories of “existence”, “absurdity”, “rebellion”, “freedom”, “moral choice”, “ultimate situation”, and also developed the traditions of modernist literature. Depicting man in a “world without God,” Camus consistently considered the positions of “tragic humanism.” In addition to literary prose, the author’s creative heritage includes drama, philosophical essays, literary criticism, and journalistic speeches.

He was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria, in the family of a rural worker who died from a serious wound received at the front in the First World War. Camus studied first at a communal school, then at the Algiers Lyceum, and then at the University of Algiers. He was interested in literature and philosophy, and devoted his thesis to philosophy.

In 1935 he created the amateur Theater of Labor, where he was an actor, director and playwright.

In 1936 he joined the Communist Party, from which he was expelled in 1937. In the same 1937 he published his first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face.”

In 1938, the first novel, “Happy Death,” was written.

In 1940 he moved to Paris, but due to the German offensive, he lived and taught for some time in Oran, where he completed the story “The Outsider,” which attracted the attention of writers.

In 1941, he wrote the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus,” which was considered a programmatic existentialist work, as well as the drama “Caligula.”

In 1943, he settled in Paris, where he joined the resistance movement and collaborated with the illegal newspaper Combat, which he headed after the resistance threw the occupiers out of the city.

The second half of the 40s - the first half of the 50s - a period of creative development: the novel "The Plague" (1947) appeared, which brought the author world fame, the plays "State of Siege" (1948), "The Righteous" (1950), the essay "Rebel" man" (1951), the story "The Fall" (1956), the landmark collection "Exile and the Kingdom" (1957), the essay "Timely Reflections" (1950-1958), etc. The last years of his life were marked by a creative decline.

The work of Albert Camus is an example of the fruitful combination of the talents of a writer and a philosopher. For the development of the artistic consciousness of this creator, acquaintance with the works of F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer, L. Shestov, S. Kierkegaard, as well as with ancient culture and French literature, was of significant importance. One of the most important factors in the formation of his existentialist worldview was his early experience of discovering the proximity of death (while Camus was still a student, he fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis). As a thinker, he belongs to the atheistic branch of existentialism.

Pathos, denial of the values ​​of bourgeois civilization, concentration on the ideas of the absurdity of existence and rebellion, characteristic of the work of A. Camus, were the reasons for his rapprochement with the pro-communist circle of the French intelligentsia, and in particular with the ideologist of “left” existentialism J. P. Sartre. However, already in the post-war years, the writer broke with his former colleagues and comrades, because he had no illusions about the “communist paradise” in the former USSR and wanted to reconsider his relationship with “leftist” existentialism.

While still an aspiring writer, A. Camus drew up a plan for his future creative path, which was supposed to combine three facets of his talent and, accordingly, three areas of his interests - literature, philosophy and theater. There were such stages - “absurdity”, “rebellion”, “love”. The writer consistently implemented his plan, alas, at the third stage his creative path was cut short by death.

On January 4, 1960, Paris was shocked by terrible news. The car in which the famous writer Albert Camus was traveling with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, returning from Provence, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villebleuven, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later; his wife and daughter survived. The famous writer, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in 1957, died on the spot, he was only 46 years old.

“The Conscience of the West” – Albert Camus

Albert Camus is a French writer, journalist, essayist, philosopher, and member of the French Resistance movement. One of the key figures in world literature. He, along with Sartre, stood at the origins of existentialism. But later he moved away from him, becoming a continuer of the tradition of philosophical prose. Camus is one of the most ardent humanists in the history of literature. He was called the “conscience of the West.” His ethics prohibit murder, even if it is committed in the name of a great idea; Camus rejects those who pretend to be Prometheans and are ready to sacrifice others for the sake of building a bright future.

After the accident, rumors spread throughout Paris that it was not just an accident, but a contract killing. During his short life, Camus made many enemies. He led the resistance movement against colonialism. But he was against the terror unleashed in his homeland against the colonialists. He was not tolerated either by the right-wing French, who defended French colonial rule in Algeria, or by the terrorists who wanted to destroy the colonialists. He wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Camus was born in Algeria on November 7, 1913 into a poor family of agricultural workers. My father was called to the front during the First World War, and two weeks later he was killed. An illiterate, semi-deaf mother moved with her children to a poor area.

In 1923, her son graduated from primary school and had to go to work to help his mother feed the family. But the teacher persuaded the mother to send the boy to the lyceum. The teacher said that someday her son would bring glory to the family. “He has an undoubted talent, you will be proud of him,” he insisted, and the mother agreed to send her son to the lyceum, where he showed his best side. Here his penchant for football was revealed; he showed great promise as an athlete.

After the Lyceum, Albert entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Algiers. Played soccer. He was predicted to have a brilliant sports future. But at the age of 17 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and had to say goodbye to football. The future was vague, but it belonged only to him. “I was somewhere halfway between sunshine and poverty. Poverty prevented me from believing that all was well in history. And the sun taught me that history is not everything. Change lives, yes, but not the world in which I will create.”

Studying had to be paid for and Albert did not disdain any kind of work: a private teacher, a salesman of spare parts, an assistant at a meteorological institute. He was successful with women. But Simone, his first wife, turned out to be a morphine addict. The marriage broke up.

In 1935, Camus became interested in Marxism and joined the Algerian Communist Party. He dreamed of liberating the working man. However, he quickly discovered that the policy of the Communist Party was opportunistic and tied to Moscow. In 1937 he left the party. Together with her theater troupe, the Theater of Labor, which was associated with communist cells, Camus traveled throughout Algeria. He was both a director and an actor. Wrote for the theater. I planned to study further. But worsening tuberculosis did not allow this. But he didn’t stop him from writing. Camus became a journalist for several newspapers. The main theme is the terrible situation of the indigenous population of Algeria. “I didn’t learn freedom from Marx,” he writes in his notebooks, “poverty taught me it.”

One after another, his books “The Inside Out and the Face”, “Marriage”, and the play “Caligula” began to be published.
In the spring of 1940, Camus moved to France. He headed the Paris Soir newspaper. He married his classmate Francine Faure. He so needed a quiet home and the care of a loving woman. Quiet family happiness did not last long. On June 25, 1940, France capitulated. Camus was fired from his post as editor. Left for evacuation. But two years later he returned to Paris and actively became involved in the activities of the French resistance. He became a member of the underground organization Comba and met the actress Maria Cazarez, for whom he developed a deep and passionate love. It was a dangerous and difficult time. He wrote, and before his eyes the defeat of Paris by the brown plague took place.

A cocktail of love and risk - that’s what Camus’ life was like at this time. The love idyll with Marie lasted a year. And in 1944, Francine returned to Paris to her husband. Marie was shocked, it turns out that her lover is married. She gave Camus a week to think about it so that he could make the final choice between her and Francine. It was unbearable. Albert was torn between love and duty. Essentially, he married Francine not for love, but because of his illness. He succumbed to weakness. But he was grateful to her for her care and warmth. Because she was there in difficult moments of life. Now his wife needed his protection. She was pregnant. He couldn't leave her. Maria made the decision. Having learned about the twins, she herself left Albert.

Camus suffered greatly. Wrote her long letters. Love and duty fought to the death inside him. This personal drama unfolded against the backdrop of events in Paris. At the end of the war, it was time for reckoning with those who supported the Nazis. A wave of lynchings and reprisals began. Camus was categorically against terror and revenge; he was convinced that one should not take the side of the guillotine. The witch hunt for those who collaborated with the fascists knocked him out of his creative rut. Every article about him in the newspapers is indignation: “Who are you with, Mr. Writer?”

And he is the only one among French writers who opposed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Camus was convinced that the bombing was not the final victory, it was the beginning of a new, more debilitating war. And she needs to be stopped.

In 1948, three years after the breakup, Albert one day saw Marie on the street. And it all started all over again. There was nothing they could do about it. It was a match made in heaven. Happiness, intoxicating and all-consuming, covered them, and nothing could separate them anymore. Now he is a famous writer. He is no longer perceived as the lover of a famous actress. He once said: “Not to be loved is just failure, not to love is misfortune.” He was lucky enough to experience both at the same time. And yet he was happy because he loved.

He never even thought about leaving Francine. But his wife annoyed him. Creativity saved him from family troubles and a double life. “He is free who does not have to lie,” wrote Camus. In his work, he was extremely honest with the reader and himself.

At this time, he wrote his famous work “The Rebel Man” - an essay about rebellion and man. In it, Camus explored the anatomy of rebellion and came to shocking conclusions. Rebellion against the absurd is natural and normal. But revolution is violence leading to tyranny. It is aimed at suppressing human rebellion against the absurd. This means revolution is unacceptable. So Camus debunked the Marxist idea. And he completely broke with the existentialists. He became a humanist.“I only hate executioners,” he wrote. - Other people are different. They act most often out of ignorance. They don’t know what they are doing, so most often they commit evil. But they are not executioners." This was an attempt to educate others.

“The Rebel Man” quarreled Camus with Sartre, although before that they had been inseparable for 10 years. Thanks to this friendship, Camus's work is still mistakenly attributed to the philosophy of existentialism. “I have too few points of contact with the fashionable teaching of existentialism, the conclusions of which are false” , wrote Camus.

Back in 1945, intoxicated by victory, he and Sartre argued fiercely about whether it was possible to sacrifice their inner feelings for the common good. Sartre stated: “It is impossible to make a revolution without getting your hands dirty.” Camus believed that “there is no accident in the choice of what can dishonor you”. In "The Rebellious Man" Camus encroached on the sacred. He criticized the ideology of Marxism.

He examines in this work what rebellion leads to. Yes, it can lead to liberation. But a side effect is that Human-Gods, Prometheans, appear, who then drive people into concentration camps. The scandal was unimaginable. Camus was criticized by both the left and the right. A frantic persecution of the writer began. L'Humanité declared Camus a "warmonger." Sartre published a play, The Devil and God, which ended with the words: “The kingdom of man begins, and in it I will be an executioner and a butcher”. Sartre finally went over to the side of the executioner. That is, he directly called himself the one whom Camus hated. Further relationships were impossible.

In the fall of 1957, Albert Camus was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the wording was: “for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience.” It was like a bolt from the blue. Camus was at a loss. His “Rebellious Man” is not scolded unless he is lazy; he is bullied and ridiculed. And here is a prestigious award. Camus is confused.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Pasternak, Samuel Beckett, Andre Malraux were nominated. “Malraux will receive the prize,” Camus repeats like a spell. But he, the youngest of the nominees, had to go to Stockholm. He considered himself unworthy of such recognition. At some point I even wanted to refuse the prize and send my Nobel speech by mail. Friends convinced him to read it in person.

« Every generation is convinced that its destiny is to remake the world. Mine already knows that he cannot change this world. But his task is even greater. It is to prevent this world from perishing. I am too firmly attached to the galley of our time not to row with others, even if I am sure that the galley stinks of herring, and there are too many overseers in it, and the wrong course has been taken" The performance was met with applause.

One student from Algeria asked the writer: “You have written so many books, but have done nothing for your home country? Will Algeria be free? Camus replied: “I stand for justice. But I am against terror and, if I have the chance, I will not defend Algeria, but my mother.”

On the streets of his hometown, indeed, shots were heard and terrorist attacks took place, the victims of which were innocent people, his mother could have become.

Apart from a small house in Provence, my first home, the Camus Prize did not bring me any other joy. As soon as it became known that he had received the prestigious award, the newspapers were full of mocking headlines. “What are such outstanding ideas? His creations lack depth and imagination. The Nobel Committee rewards wasted talent!” The bullying began. “Look who was awarded the Nobel Prize? His own peace and his mother’s suffering are dearer to him than the whole country.” The Algerian rebels were seething with indignation. “He betrayed the interests of his native people.” The Soviet press reacted most negatively. “It is absolutely obvious,” Pravda wrote, “that he received the award for political reasons for attacks on the USSR. But I was once a member of the Communist Party.”
It is not surprising that after the death of Camus, many began to say that the accident was staged by KGB agents.

Or maybe Camus decided to take his own life? Family and love drama, break with Sartre, persecution in the press. “There is always something in a person that rejects love, that part of his being that wants to die. My whole life is a story of delayed suicide.” , he wrote in “The Myth of Sisyphus.” But people who knew him well said that he was far from suicidal and would not risk the lives of his close friends who were sitting in the same car with him.

What happened on the road from Provence to Paris in 1960? Most likely an accident. “My most cherished desire is a quiet death, which would not make people dear to me worry too much,” he wrote shortly before his death. But there was no quiet death. The manuscript of the autobiographical novel “The First Man” was found in the writer’s travel bag. The author's remark, “The book must be unfinished,” was preserved in the drafts. His last book remained unfinished, like his family life and love, like his whole life, which ended so suddenly. But, apparently, his soul was ready for this.

“If the soul exists, it would be wrong to think that it is given to us already created. It happens on earth throughout life. Life itself is nothing more than this long and painful birth. When the creation of the soul, which man owes to himself and to suffering, is completed, death comes.” (A. Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus).

Years of life: from 07.11.1913 to 04.01.1960

French writer and philosopher, existentialist, Nobel Prize winner in literature.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria, on the San Pol farm near the town of Mondovi. When the writer's father died in the Battle of the Marne at the beginning of the First World War, his mother moved with the children to the city of Algiers.

In Algeria, after graduating from primary school, Camus studied at the lyceum, where he was forced to interrupt his studies for a year in 1930 due to tuberculosis.

In 1932-1937 studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. On the advice of Grenier at the university, Camus began keeping diaries and writing essays, influenced by the philosophy of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. During his senior years at the university, he became interested in socialist ideas and in the spring of 1935 joined the French Communist Party and conducts propaganda activities among Muslims. He was a member of the local branch of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for connections with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of “Trotskyism.”

In 1937, Camus graduated from the university, having defended his thesis in philosophy on the topic “Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism.” Camus wanted to continue his academic activities, but due to health reasons he was denied postgraduate studies, for the same reason he was later not drafted into the army.

After graduating from university, Camus briefly headed the Algiers House of Culture and then headed some left-wing opposition newspapers that were closed by military censorship after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote a lot, mainly essays and journalistic materials. In January 1939, the first version of the play “Caligula” was written.

Having lost his job as an editor, Camus moved with his wife to Oran, where they made a living by giving private lessons, and at the beginning of the war he moved to Paris.

In May 1940, Camus completed work on the novel The Stranger. In December, Camus, not wanting to live in an occupied country, returns to Oran, where he teaches French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Soon Camus joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement, became a member of the underground organization Combat, and returned to Paris.

In 1943, he met and participated in productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat; his previously written works were published, which brought the writer popularity, but in 1947 his gradual break with the leftist movement and personally with Sartre began. As a result, Camus leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”).

In the fifties, Camus gradually abandoned his socialist ideas, condemned the policies of Stalinism and the connivance of the French socialists towards this, which led to an even greater break with his former comrades and, in particular, with Sartre.

At this time, Camus became increasingly fascinated by the theater; in 1954, the writer began staging plays based on his own dramatizations, and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story “The Fall,” and the following year a collection of short stories, “Exile and the Kingdom,” was published.

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his acceptance speech, he said that he was “too firmly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even though he believed that the galley stank of herring, that it had too many overseers and that, above all, it had taken the wrong course.” In the last years of his life, Camus wrote practically nothing.

On January 4, 1960, Albert Camus died in a car accident while returning from Provence to Paris. The writer died instantly. The writer's death occurred at approximately 13:54. Michel Gallimard, who was also in the car, died in hospital two days later, but the writer's wife and daughter survived. . Albert Camus was buried in the town of Lourmarin in the Luberon region in the south of France. In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon.

In 1936, Camus created the amateur “People's Theater”, organized, in particular, a production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, where he himself played Ivan Karamazov.

Writer's Awards

1957 - in literature “For his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience”

Bibliography

(1937)
(1939)
(1942)
(1942)
(1944]early edition – 1941)
Misunderstanding (1944)
(1947)
State of Siege (1948)
Letters to a German Friend (1948) under the pseudonym Louis Nieuville)
The Righteous (1949)
Topical Notes, Book 1 (1950)
(1951)
Topical Notes, Book 2 (1953)
Summer (1954)
(1956)
Requiem for a Nun (1956) adaptation of the novel by William Faulkner)
Exile and Kingdom (1957)
(1957)
Topical Notes, Book 3 (1958)
Demons (1958) adaptation of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky)
Diaries, May 1935 - February 1942
Diaries, January 1942 - March 1951
Diaries, March 1951 - December 1959
Happy death (1936-1938)

Film adaptations of works, theatrical performances

1967 - The Outsider (Italy, L. Visconti)
1992 - Plague
1997 - Caligula
2001 - Fate (based on the novel "The Outsider", Türkiye)

French writer, essayist and playwright Albert Camus was a literary representative of his generation. An obsession with philosophical problems of the meaning of life and the search for true values ​​provided the writer with cult status among readers and brought him the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44.

Childhood and youth

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria, then part of France. His French father was killed during the First World War when Albert was one year old. The boy's mother, of Spanish origin, was able to provide a small income and housing in a poor area of ​​Algeria thanks to unskilled labor.

Albert's childhood was poor and sunny. Living in Algeria made Camus feel rich due to the temperate climate. Judging by Camus's statement, he "lived in poverty, but also in sensual delight." His Spanish heritage gave him a sense of self-worth in poverty and a passion for honor. Camus began writing at an early age.

At the Algerian University, he brilliantly studied philosophy - the value and meaning of life, focusing on the comparison of Hellenism and Christianity. While still a student, the guy founded a theater, at the same time directed and acted in plays. At the age of 17, Albert fell ill with tuberculosis, which did not allow him to engage in sports, military and teaching activities. Camus worked in various jobs before becoming a journalist in 1938.

His first published works were The Backside and the Face in 1937 and The Wedding Feast in 1939, a collection of essays on the meaning of life and its joys, as well as its meaninglessness. Albert Camus's writing style marked a break with the traditional bourgeois novel. He was less interested in psychological analysis than in philosophical problems.

Camus developed the idea of ​​absurdism, which provided the theme for much of his early work. The absurd is the gap between a person's desire for happiness and a world that he can understand rationally, and the real world, which is confused and irrational. The second stage of Camus's thought arose from the first: man must not only accept the absurd universe, but also “revolt” against it. This uprising is not political, but in the name of traditional values.

Books

Camus's first novel, The Stranger, published in 1942, dealt with the negative aspect of man. The book is about a young clerk named Meursault, who is the narrator and main character. Meursault is alien to all expected human emotions; he is a “sleepwalker” in life. The novel's crisis unfolds on the beach when the hero, caught in a quarrel through no fault of his own, shoots an Arab.

The second part of the novel is devoted to his trial for murder and sentence to death, which he understands in much the same way as why he killed the Arab. Meursault is absolutely honest in describing his feelings, and it is this honesty that makes him a “stranger” in the world and ensures a guilty verdict. The overall situation symbolizes the absurd nature of life, and this effect is enhanced by the book's deliberately flat and colorless style.

Camus returned to Algeria in 1941 and completed his next book, The Myth of Sisyphus, also published in 1942. This is a philosophical essay about the nature of the meaninglessness of life. The mythical character Sisyphus, condemned to eternity, lifts a heavy stone up a mountain only to have it roll back down again. Sisyphus becomes a symbol of humanity and achieves a certain sad victory in his constant efforts.

In 1942, returning to France, Camus joined the Resistance group and was engaged in underground journalism until the Liberation in 1944, when he became editor of the newspaper Boy for 3 years. Also during this period, his first two plays were staged: “Misunderstanding” in 1944 and “Caligula” in 1945.

The main role in the first play was played by actress Maria Cazares. Work with Camus turned into a deeper relationship that lasted 3 years. Maria remained on friendly terms with Albert until his death. The main theme of the plays was the meaninglessness of life and the finality of death. It was in dramaturgy that Camus felt most successful.

In 1947, Albert published his second novel, The Plague. This time Camus focused on the positive side of man. Describing the fictional attack of the bubonic plague in the Algerian city of Oran, he revisited the theme of absurdism, expressed by the senseless and completely undeserved suffering and death caused by the plague.

The narrator, Dr. Rieux, explained his ideal of "honesty" - a person who retains strength of character and tries his best, even if unsuccessfully, to fight against an outbreak of disease.

On one level, the novel can be seen as a fictional representation of the German occupation in France. "The Plague" became most widely known among readers as a symbol of the fight against evil and suffering - the main moral problems of humanity.

Camus's next important book was The Rebellious Man. The collection includes 3 important philosophical works of the writer, without which it is difficult to fully understand his concept of existentialism. In his work he asks questions: what is freedom and truth, what does the existence of a truly free person consist of? Life according to Camus is a rebellion. And it is worth organizing an uprising in order to truly live.

Personal life

On June 16, 1934, Camus married Simone Hy, who had previously been engaged to the writer's friend Max-Paul Foucher. However, the happy personal life of the newlyweds did not last long - the couple separated by July 1936, and the divorce was finalized in September 1940.

On December 3, 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematics teacher whom he had met in 1937. Although Albert loved his wife, he did not believe in the institution of marriage. Despite this, the couple had twin daughters, Catherine and Jean, born on September 5, 1945.

Death

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his works. That same year, Albert began working on his fourth important novel, and was also planning to become the director of a major Parisian theater.

On January 4, 1960, he died in a car accident in the small town of Vilbleven. The writer was 46 years old. Although many have speculated that the cause of the writer's death was a Soviet-organized accident, there is no evidence of this. Camus was survived by his wife and children.

Two of his works were published posthumously: "A Happy Death", written in the late 1930s and published in 1971, and "First Man" (1994), which Camus wrote at the time of his death. The death of the writer was a tragic loss for literature, since he still had to write works at a more mature and conscious age and expand his creative biography.

After the death of Albert Camus, many world directors took up the works of the Frenchman to film them. There have already been 6 films based on the philosopher’s books, and one fictional biography, which contains original quotes from the writer and shows his real photos.

Quotes

"Every generation tends to consider itself called upon to remake the world"

“I don’t want to be a genius, I have enough of the problems I face trying to be just a person.”

"The knowledge that we are going to die turns our life into a joke"

"Travel, as the greatest and most serious science, helps us find ourselves again"

Bibliography

• 1937 - "Inside and Out"
• 1942 - "The Outsider"
• 1942 - "The Myth of Sisyphus"
• 1947 - "Plague"
• 1951 - "The Rebel Man"
• 1956 - "Fall"
• 1957 - "Hospitality"
• 1971 - "Happy Death"
• 1978 - "Travel Diary"
• 1994 - "First Man"

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria into a fairly simple family. Father, Lucien Camus, was the caretaker of a wine cellar. He died during the war; at that time, Albert was not even a year old. Mother, Catherine Santes, was an illiterate woman and after the death of her husband she was forced to move in with relatives and become a servant in order to somehow provide for the family.

Childhood and youth

Despite an extremely difficult childhood, Albert grew up as an open, kind child, capable of feeling and loving nature.

He graduated with honors from primary school and continued his studies at the Algiers Lyceum, where he became interested in the works of such authors as M. Proust, F. Nietzsche, A. Malraux. F.M. also read with enthusiasm. Dostoevsky.

During his studies, a significant meeting took place with the philosopher Jean Grenier, who later influenced the development of Camus as a writer. Thanks to a new acquaintance, Camus discovers religious existentialism and shows interest in philosophy.

The beginning of his creative path and famous sayings of Camus

1932 is associated with entering the university. At this time, the first publications of notes and essays appeared, in which the influence of Proust, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche was clearly visible. Thus begins the creative path of one of the most famous writers of the 20th century. In 1937, a collection of philosophical reflections was published "Inside and Face", in which the lyrical hero seeks to hide from the chaos of existence and find peace in the wisdom of nature.

1938 to 1944 are conventionally considered the first period in the writer’s work. Camus works for the underground newspaper Combat, which he himself headed after liberation from the German occupation. Dramas are released at this time "Caligula"(1944), story "Stranger"(1942). The book ends this period "The Myth of Sisyphus".

“All people in the world are chosen ones. There are no others. Sooner or later everyone will be convicted and sentenced.”

“I have often thought: if I were forced to live in the trunk of a dried-up tree, and could do nothing at all except watch the sky bloom overhead, I would gradually get used to it.”
"The Stranger", 1942 - Albert Camus, quote

“Every reasonable person, one way or another, has ever wished death for those he loves.”
"The Stranger", 1942 - Albert Camus, quote

“Everything begins with consciousness and nothing else matters.”
"The Myth of Sisyphus", 1944 - Albert Camus, quote

In 1947, Camus's new, largest and perhaps most powerful prose work, the novel, was published. "Plague". One of the events that influenced the progress of work on the novel was the Second World War. Camus himself insisted on many readings of this book, but still singled out one.

In a letter to Roland Barthes about The Plague, he says that the novel is a symbolic reflection of the struggle of European society against Nazism.

“Anxiety is a slight aversion to the future”
"The Plague", 1947 - Albert Camus, quote

“In ordinary times, we all, conscious of it or not, understand that there is love for which there are no limits, and nevertheless we agree, and even quite calmly, that our love is, in essence, second-class. But human memory is more demanding.” "The Plague", 1947 - Albert Camus, quote

“The evil that exists in the world is almost always the result of ignorance, and any good will can do as much damage as an evil one, unless that good will is not sufficiently enlightened.
"The Plague", 1947 - Albert Camus, quote"

The first mention of the novel appears in Camus’s notes in 1941 under the title “Plague or Adventure (novel),” at which time he began studying specialized literature on the topic.

It should be noted that the first drafts of this manuscript differ significantly from the final version; as the novel was written, its plot and some descriptions changed. Many details were noticed by the author during his stay in Oran.

The next work to see the light is "Rebel Man"(1951), where Camus explores the origin of man's resistance against the internal and environmental absurdity of existence.

In 1956, the story appears "A fall", and a year later a collection of essays is published "Exile and Kingdom".

The reward has found a hero

In 1957, Albert Camus received the Nobel Prize “for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience.”

In his speech, which would later be called the “Swedish Speech,” Camus said that “he was too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that there were too many overseers on it, and that, above all, the wrong course has been taken."

He was buried in the cemetery at Lourmarin in the south of France.

Film based on the book by Olivier Todd “Albert Camus, a Life” - VIDEO

Albert Camus, a French writer and philosopher close to existentialism, received the common name during his lifetime as “The Conscience of the West.” Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience."