Albert Camus

Albert Camus (French: [albɛʁ kamy]; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Camus did not consider himself to be an existentialist despite usually being classified as one, even in his lifetime. In a 1945 interview, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked...".

Camus was born in Algeria to a Pied-Noir family, and studied at the University of Algiers from which he graduated in 1936. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons to "denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA".

Life

Early years

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Dréan (then known as Mondovi) in French Algeria to a Pied-Noir family. His mother was of Spanish descent and could only hear out of her left ear. His father Lucien, a poor agricultural worker of French Alsatian descent, was wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during World War I, while serving as a member of the Zouave infantry regiment. Lucien died in a makeshift army hospital from his wounds on October 11. Camus and his mother, an illiterate house cleaner, lived without a wealth of material possessions during his childhood in the Belcourt section of Algiers.