Albert Camus

On June 16, 1934 Camus married Simone Hié, who was earlier engaged to Camus’ friend Max-Pol Fouchet. However, the marriage did not last long and they separated by July 1936 and the divorce was finalized in September 1940.

On 3 December 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematician, whom he had met in 1937. Although he loved his wife, he did not believe in the institution of marriage and had many extra martial affairs. In spite of that, the couple had twin daughters Catherine and Jean, born on 5 September 1945.

Camus died in a car accident near Sens, in Le Grand Fossard in the small town of Villeblevin on 4 January 1960, at the age of 46. Although many suggested that the accident was orchestrated by the Soviets, there is no proof of that. Camus was survived by his wife and daughters.

Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Mondovi (now known as Dréan) in French Algeria. His father, Lucien Camus, was of Alsatian descent. He worked as an agricultural laborer until he was drafted in the army at the wake of the First World War.

His mother, Catherine Camus, was of Spanish descent and worked as a cleaning woman. She was illiterate and also hard of hearing. He had an elder brother, also called Lucien.

On 11 October 1914, when Camus was barely 11 months old, his father died from injuries sustained at the battle field. Thereafter, Catherine moved to Algiers with her children, where she put up with her dominating mother in the working class suburb of Belcourt.

In 1918, Camus began his studies at the local Ecole Communale. Very soon he caught the attention of his teacher Louis Germain, who advised him to seek a scholarship so that he could attend secondary school. He also convinced his grandmother to allow him to complete his education.

In 1923, Camus was enrolled at the Lycée Bugeaud, where boys from different backgrounds came to study. While filling the form, he was initially embarrassed to write his mother’s occupation as ‘domestic,’ but soon became angry with himself. After that he was never ashamed of his poverty.

In 1935 he cofounded Théâtre du Travail (Worker's Theatre) and started writing plays. By now, he had joined the French Communist Party and many of his works carried leftist messages.

Concurrently, he worked on his thesis, titled ‘Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism: Plotinus and Augustine'. He submitted it on 8 May 1936 and on 25 May he was granted his diplome d’études supérieures. At this point, he suffered another attack of tuberculosis.

To regain his health, Camus traveled to the French Alps and then returned to Algiers via Florence, Pisa, and Genoa. His doctor now gave him a fit certificate; yet he was rejected on medical grounds and thus his ambition of becoming a teacher failed to materialize.

He now concentrated on writing and in 1937 joined a socialist paper called ‘Alger-Républicain’ as a journalist. In the same year, he was expelled from the Communist Party. Disillusioned with the system, he renamed Théâtre du Travail as Théâtre de l'Equipe (Theatre of the Team).

Slowly, he established himself as an emerging author, journalist, and theatre professional. He had by now published his first two works, ‘Betwixt and Between’ (L'envers et l'endroit, 1937), and ‘Nuptials’ (Noes, 1938).

Camus is best remembered for promoting Absurdism, which refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek the inherent meaning as well as value of life and their inability to find the same. He had introduced this philosophy in his 1942 essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. However, many critics cite his first novel ‘L’Étranger’ to be its best example.

His two other major works are ‘La Peste’ and ‘La Chute’. While ‘La Chute’ is a philosophical novel which attempts to explain how a human being is capable of doing evil deeds, ‘La Peste’ tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran.