D. Edwards
Miss West
World Literature
21 April 2002
Albert Camus was born on November 1, 1913 in Mondovi, a small village in the interior of Algeria to an
impoverished family. Less than a year after Camus was born, his father, a menial laborer of French Alsatian origin, was
killed at the Battle of the Marne during World War I. His mother was of Spanish descent and worked as a charwoman to
support the family. After the death of his father, he and his brother, Lucien, moved in with his mother's family, who lived
in a working-class suburb of Algiers. All three lived there together in a small two-room apartment with his maternal
grandmother and a paralyzed uncle. Camus's mother, Catherine, was illiterate and worked long hours spending little time
with her sons. She rarely spoke and responded little to their emotional needs. His grandmother was a harsh and unloving
woman. There is no doubt that Camus suffered from loneliness and poverty as a child.
Camus was an excellent student and was especially good in French and mathematics. An outstanding teacher in his
primary school, Louis Germain, helped him to win a scholarship to the Algiers lycee (high school) in 1923. Thirty-four
years later, Camus would dedicate his speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature to Germain. At fifteen, Camus
joined a soccer team and excelled in swimming and boxing. Unfortunately, at the age of seventeen, Camus was struck with
tuberculosis. His illness was so severe that he had to repeat a year of school. Throughout his life, Camus would be
periodically struck with this disease.
After high school in 1930, Camus registered as a philosophy student at the University of Algiers. He obtained a
diplome d'etudes superieures in 1936 for a thesis on the relationship between Greek and Christian thought.
At university, he met his first wife, Simone Hie. She was a complicated girl, who tragically had become addicted to
morphine at fourteen when her mother gave it to her to help with the pain of her menstrual periods. Camus tried
desperately to break her drug-addiction but to no avail. They were married only two years and broke up in 1936.
Throughout the 1930s, Camus broadened his interests, reading the French classics as well as famous writers of the
day, Andre Gide, Henry de Montherlant, and Andree Malraux, a well-known young left-wing intellectual in Algiers. For a
short period in 1934-35, Camus was a member of the Algerian Communist Party.
In 1932, Camus began to write his first plays for the Theatre du Travail, which brought outstanding plays to
working class audiences. Camus' first published essays, L'Envers et L'Endroit (1937), describe the physical settings of
his childhood and include character portraits of his mother, grandmother, and uncle. A second collection of essays,
Noces (1938), contain lyrical descriptions of the Algerian countryside and the life of the poor in that country.
During the two years before the outbreak of World War II. Camus was a journalist with the newspaper, the
Alger-Republicain. There, he reviewed some of Jean-Paul Sartre's early literary works and wrote a series of articles that
addressed the oppressed social conditions of the Arabs in Algeria. These articles drew attention to the injustices and
the plight of the Arabs that would eventually lead to the outbreak of the Algerian War fifteen years later in 1954.
During World War II, Camus went to live in Paris where he worked at first for the newspaper, Paris Soir. Before
leaving Algeria, he met his second wife, Francine Faure. They had twin children in 1945.
It was at this time that Camus came into prominence as a great writer. In 1942, the novel, L'Etranger, was
published, perhaps his finest work of fiction. The Le Mythe de Sisyphe was also published in 1942. Camus now became
widely known in literary circles.
It was not until near the end of the war and after the liberation of Paris in 1944 that he became a national figure as
editor of the Resistance newspaper, Combat. Camus used Combat to make the French public aware of the political and
economic crisis in Algeria. It was at this time that Camus met the famous French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre.
In 1947, Camus published his second novel, La Peste; in 1951, a long essay, L'Homme Revolte; and in 1956, his
third novel, La Chute. His essay, L'Homme Revolte, involved a strong criticism of Soviet Communism which caused the
eventual break in friendship between himself and Sartre, a strong supporter of Soviet Communism.
In 1957, at the early age of 44, Albert Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Besides Rudyard Kipling, he
was the youngest man to have ever received this prize.
Very tragically, he was killed in an automobile accident less than three years later on his way from the south of
France to Paris in 1960.
Sources:
"Albert Camus." Encyclopaedia Britannica. CD - ROM. 2002 ed. Chicago: Britannica.com Inc. 2002.
Lattal, Ashley. "The Life, Work, and Creativity of Albert Camus." 24 Mar. 2002.