Albert Camus (1913–1960)
Author of The Stranger
About the Author
Born in 1913 in Algeria, Albert Camus was a French novelist, dramatist, and essayist. He was deeply affected by the plight of the French during the Nazi occupation of World War II, who were subject to the military's arbitrary whims. He explored the existential human condition in such works as show more L'Etranger (The Outsider, 1942) and Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942), which propagated the philosophical notion of the "absurd" that was being given dramatic expression by other Theatre of the Absurd dramatists of the 1950s and 1960s. Camus also wrote a number of plays, including Caligula (1944). Much of his work was translated into English. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. Camus died in an automobile accident in 1960. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Do not combine this page with the author page for A. Camus or for Camus as there are other authors with the same surname, and surname and initial.
Image credit: Albert Camus in 18 October, 1957
Series
Works by Albert Camus
The Plague, The Fall, Exile and the Kingdom, and Selected Essays (Everyman's Library) (2004) 776 copies, 4 reviews
Jonas Ou L'Artiste Au Travail: Suivi de la Pierre Qui Pousse (Folio (Gallimard)) (French Edition) (1957) 102 copies, 2 reviews
Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper Combat, 1944-1947 (1991) 60 copies, 2 reviews
Travels in the Americas: Notes and Impressions of a New World (The France Chicago Collection) (2023) 19 copies, 2 reviews
Oeuvres completes tome IV [Bibliotheque de la Pleiade] (French Edition) (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 10921) (2008) 15 copies, 1 review
Obras/ Works: El Reves Y El Derecho. Nupcias. El Extranjero. El Mito De Sisifo. Caligula. Carnets, 1 (Spanish Edition) (1996) 10 copies
Lo straniero - La peste - La caduta - L'esilio e il regno - Il rovescio e il diritto - Nozze - Il mito di Sisifo - L'estate - Il malinteso (1965) 8 copies
L'Étranger, La Peste, La Chute 6 copies
Minotaurus 5 copies
Ribellione e morte: saggi politici 5 copies
Obras/ Works: El Hombre Rebelde. Cronicas 1948-1953. Reflexiones Sobre La Guillotina. El Verano (Spanish Edition) (1996) 5 copies
La caduta e Discorsi di Svezia — Author — 4 copies
Albert Camus, editorialiste a l'Express: Mai 1955-fevrier 1956 (Cahiers Albert Camus) (French Edition) (1987) — Author — 4 copies, 1 review
Fiche de lecture L'Étranger de Albert Camus (analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (2014) 3 copies
Esortazione ai medici della peste 3 copies
Obras / Works: Diarios de viaje & Carnets, 2 & La caída & Crónicas argelinas 1939-1958 (Spanish Edition) (1996) 3 copies
Pages choisies 2 copies
"PREFACE" 2 copies
Opere di Camus 2 copies
Novele 2 copies
Счастливая смерть [Роман]; Посторонний : [Повесть]; Чума : [Роман]; Падение : [Повесть]; Калигула :… (1993) 2 copies
Fiche de lecture La Peste de Camus (Analyse littéraire de référence et résumé complet) (French Edition) (2018) 2 copies
Albert Camus: Obras escogidas 2 copies
L'Étranger&La Peste 2 copies
Essays by Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus, the Rebel, Reflections on the Guillotine (2010) 2 copies
Świadek Wolności 1 copy
NJERIU I PARË 1 copy
VERA NË ALGJER 1 copy
La peste - Tome 3 1 copy
කැමූ සිතුවිලි 1 copy
Özgürlük Ve Devrim 1 copy
راستان (Rastan) 1 copy
RËNIA 1 copy
D¿ơuma 1 copy
Obras Completas Tomo II 1 copy
Le mythe se Sisyphe 1 copy
المقصلة 1 copy
Δημιουργία και ελευθερία 1 copy
Başkaldıran İnsan 1 copy
Obra selecta 1 copy
L'tranger 1 copy
SANATÇI VE ÇAĞI 1 copy
NJ VDEKJE E LUMTUR 1 copy
TË DREJTËT 1 copy
Избранное 1 copy
Новеллы : учебное пособие для педагогических институтов по специальности N 2103 "Иностранные языки" 1 copy
E PRAPMJA DHE E PËRPARMJA 1 copy
O xenos 1 copy
คนนอก (L'Etranher) 1 copy
L'homme Revolte. Edition Special Centenaire Avec Carnet Offert (French Edition) (FOLIO ESSAIS) (2013) 1 copy
L'estate 1 copy
MBRETËRIA DHE MËRGIMI 1 copy
L'Eté , par Albert Camus 1 copy
l´été 1 copy
NJË KËNAQËSI E VETMUAR 1 copy
Par Robert de Luppe 1 copy
'Ādil'hā 1 copy
El verano / Bodas / La caída 1 copy
Rub a lice 1 copy
Odabrana djela 1 copy
Proti neredu sveta 1 copy
The Renegade or a Confused Spirit — Author — 1 copy
The Trial — Author — 1 copy
Užrašų knygelės I 1 copy
Saggi letterari 1 copy
Misère de la Kabylie 1 copy
The Silent Men — Author — 1 copy
The Thibaults 1 copy
Vous Parle 1 copy
Cahiers Albert Camus 1 copy
Denemeler 1 copy
Esė rinktinė. D. 2 1 copy
The Funeral 1 copy
Primeiros cadernos 1 copy
Dżuma Tom 1 1 copy
Dżuma Tom 2 1 copy
Summer 1 copy
Profil - Camus (Albert) : La Peste: analyse littéraire de l'oeuvre (Profil d'une Oeuvre) (French Edition) (2002) 1 copy
Desde la biblioteca: Camus 1 copy
Krisis kebebasan 1 copy
Plague Exile Kingdom 1 copy
The Sea Close By 1 copy
Rencontre avec Camus. 1 copy
Calepins de Bibliographie 1 copy
Twice A Year, No. XIV-XV 1 copy
Teatro di Albert Camus 1 copy
Opgør : Essays 1 copy
GOJËKYÇURI RENEGATI 1 copy
Associated Works
At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails (2016) — Contributor, some editions — 1,916 copies, 49 reviews
The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction (1976) — Contributor — 1,213 copies, 3 reviews
Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense (1970) — Contributor, some editions — 890 copies, 4 reviews
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 623 copies, 9 reviews
The Art of the Tale: An International Anthology of Short Stories (1986) — Contributor — 380 copies, 3 reviews
The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature (1999) — Contributor — 201 copies, 2 reviews
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 3: From Heart of Darkness to Hemingway to Infinite Jest (2013) — Contributor — 160 copies, 1 review
Fifty Years: Being a Retrospective Collection of Novels, Novellas, Tales, Drama, Poetry, and Reportage and Essays: All Drawn from Volumes Issued during the Last Half-Century by… (1965) — Contributor — 57 copies
The World of Law, Volumes I-II: The Law in Literature, The Law as Literature (1960) — Contributor — 54 copies
Die Sammlung der Nationalgalerie : 1945-1968 : Der geteilte Himmel : die Dokumentation einer Ausstellung (2014) — Contributor — 6 copies
L'homme revolte [de] Camus: Analyse critique (Profil d'une oeuvre ; 56) (French Edition) (1977) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Camus, Albert
- Birthdate
- 1913-11-07
- Date of death
- 1960-01-04
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Algiers (BA, 1935)
University of Algiers (MA, 1936) - Occupations
- novelist
essayist
playwright
journalist - Organizations
- French Communist Party
Algerian People's Party
Combat
French Resistance - Awards and honors
- Nobel Prize (Literature, 1957)
- Relationships
- Casares, Maria (partner)
Feraoun, Mouloud (friend) - Short biography
- Albert Camus was born to French-Spanish parents in Mondovi, a small village in northeastern Algeria, then a French colony. In 1933, he enrolled at the University of Algiers.. He became a theater professional and journalist, joining the staff of the Alger-Républicain in 1938. He was in Paris working for Paris-Soir magazine at the outbreak of World War II, and joined the French Resistance. After the war, he left political journalism and focused on essays, fiction, and his work as a theater producer and playwright. Camus died in an auto accident in 1960 at age 46.
- Cause of death
- car crash
- Nationality
- Algeria (birth)
France - Birthplace
- Mondovi, Algeria
- Places of residence
- Algiers, Algeria
Paris, France
Mondovi, Algeria (birth) - Place of death
- Villeblevin, Yonne, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, France
- Burial location
- Lourmarin Cemetery, Lourmarin, Vaucluse, France
- Map Location
- France
Algeria - Disambiguation notice
- Do not combine this page with the author page for A. Camus or for Camus as there are other authors with the same surname, and surname and initial.
Members
Discussions
Camus - His Non-Fiction - discussion in Literary Centennials (May 2018)
possibly Dystopian about Death in Name that Book (October 2015)
Camus - The Fall - discussion in Literary Centennials (January 2014)
Albert Camus - Resources and General Discussion in Literary Centennials (December 2013)
Camus - The Plague - discussion in Literary Centennials (August 2013)
Camus - The Stranger (aka Outsider) - discussion in Literary Centennials (March 2013)
Camus - A Happy Death - discussion in Literary Centennials (January 2013)
***GroupRead: The Plague (Spoiler Free) in 75 Books Challenge for 2010 (April 2010)
Reviews
I feel like I have to justify this 3 star review.
I understand what Camus is getting at throughout his novella. It's an intro to existentialism staple. Mersault, the impassive and free-willed main character doomed from the beginning because society does not understand his tenets of living, takes us on his journey of coming to terms with the possibilities of his conciousness. A heightened embodiment of the existential mantra, Meursault skirts between the line of a hilariously personified show more existential body, to a vague, watered-down shadow of it. Perhaps that was Camus' genius: create a character just relatable enough to see the persecution of such a radical philosophy (you may argue it's not, but I'm not here to go into the finer points of it) and take us unknowingly into his mind to sympathize.
I think my problem lies entirely with me. I'm not a fan of existentialism. I think there's too much meaning in the world and I revel in the supernatural, the love of others, and the pain therein. I can get a hold of the idea of being alone in the universe, and I think that's a pretty swell way to put it, but that'll never lesson my drive to become as attached as I can to others.
Therein lies the rub: I don't identify with this struggle to the extent Camus' explored. I am quite in the fashion of enjoying the emotions of life and I think that made it so I did not enjoy this as much as I should have. It was a fine read, beyond intelligent and creative with how these ideas were presented, but it just wasn't for me. I think that's the problem with philosophical books, it's a hit or a miss when you're dealing with something so heady as an entire fashion of thought and consciousness. I'll probably pick it up again in a few years if I'm being honest, but for now, it's a tentative 3 for me. Where's my sun beaten breakdown with red between my eyes and a mad dash to the 5 star button so I stop feeling so damned outta the loop about this thing? show less
I understand what Camus is getting at throughout his novella. It's an intro to existentialism staple. Mersault, the impassive and free-willed main character doomed from the beginning because society does not understand his tenets of living, takes us on his journey of coming to terms with the possibilities of his conciousness. A heightened embodiment of the existential mantra, Meursault skirts between the line of a hilariously personified show more existential body, to a vague, watered-down shadow of it. Perhaps that was Camus' genius: create a character just relatable enough to see the persecution of such a radical philosophy (you may argue it's not, but I'm not here to go into the finer points of it) and take us unknowingly into his mind to sympathize.
I think my problem lies entirely with me. I'm not a fan of existentialism. I think there's too much meaning in the world and I revel in the supernatural, the love of others, and the pain therein. I can get a hold of the idea of being alone in the universe, and I think that's a pretty swell way to put it, but that'll never lesson my drive to become as attached as I can to others.
Therein lies the rub: I don't identify with this struggle to the extent Camus' explored. I am quite in the fashion of enjoying the emotions of life and I think that made it so I did not enjoy this as much as I should have. It was a fine read, beyond intelligent and creative with how these ideas were presented, but it just wasn't for me. I think that's the problem with philosophical books, it's a hit or a miss when you're dealing with something so heady as an entire fashion of thought and consciousness. I'll probably pick it up again in a few years if I'm being honest, but for now, it's a tentative 3 for me. Where's my sun beaten breakdown with red between my eyes and a mad dash to the 5 star button so I stop feeling so damned outta the loop about this thing? show less
Reading this in a time of actual plague (or at least epidemic), I’m probably much less likely than I otherwise would have been to search for symbolism and analog in Camus’ narrative. There is a lot here (especially in the first section) that just echoes what I see in the world around me. But in the end, I do think there’s a way that the plague itself takes on a metaphorical role (as does the Coronavirus epidemic, probably).
The central threat to the characters of this book is a stand-in show more for any great challenge facing an entire civilization of people—pestilence, fascism, natural disaster, economic calamity, whatever. In a sense it’s the fact of being threatened that is the challenge, rather than the nature of the threat itself. The characters themselves, and the society of which they are a part, are representative of the many ways we all respond to such upheavals.
There’s something a little cynical, and a little hopeful, about Camus’ take on all this. The book doesn’t really have genuine heroes, in a mythic sense. But what it does have is ordinary people offering their own time and energy to resist. Camus celebrates the way this brings them together as a community, which I appreciate even if it’s not how we’re responding to the crisis we’re now living through. I guess I’d still like to think it’s possible that we’ll come together and discover a greater sense of solidarity in our shared resistance to a common threat. But that’s the (perhaps naïve) optimism underlying Camus’ book. Was it represented in the reality of French resistance to the Nazis? I don’t know. Is it represented in our resistance to the multifaceted threat we face? Not yet. show less
The central threat to the characters of this book is a stand-in show more for any great challenge facing an entire civilization of people—pestilence, fascism, natural disaster, economic calamity, whatever. In a sense it’s the fact of being threatened that is the challenge, rather than the nature of the threat itself. The characters themselves, and the society of which they are a part, are representative of the many ways we all respond to such upheavals.
There’s something a little cynical, and a little hopeful, about Camus’ take on all this. The book doesn’t really have genuine heroes, in a mythic sense. But what it does have is ordinary people offering their own time and energy to resist. Camus celebrates the way this brings them together as a community, which I appreciate even if it’s not how we’re responding to the crisis we’re now living through. I guess I’d still like to think it’s possible that we’ll come together and discover a greater sense of solidarity in our shared resistance to a common threat. But that’s the (perhaps naïve) optimism underlying Camus’ book. Was it represented in the reality of French resistance to the Nazis? I don’t know. Is it represented in our resistance to the multifaceted threat we face? Not yet. show less
Meursault's mother has died, so he travels to her funeral at an assisted living facility outside of the city. When he returns home to Algiers continues drifting through life without any real motivation or preferences, until he ends up, for no reason he or anyone else can fathom, fatally shooting a stranger on the beach. He is then put through a rather futile murder trial.
This book has basically the vibes I was expecting, having read Camus before, but not the plot. It's hard to feel much show more sympathy for the narrator. He seems to genuinely have trouble engaging with the world but he also tacitly endorses animal abuse, domestic abuse, assault, racism, and lying to the police even though we know that he knows they are wrong. Oh, and the part where he shoots a stranger 5 times for no reason! The trial is slightly absurdist, as the prosecutor focuses on Meursault's relationship with his mother instead of his actions, but it's hard to argue he shouldn't be convicted for killing a person without any reason or remorse.
This edition was translated by Stuart Gilbert. The beginning of the book is very short choppy sentences, which led me to feel very removed from the narrator. That certainly could have been purposeful, based on the plot, but there's no translator's note so I'm not sure if it's just a translation quirk.
This book is not one I'm going to revisit, but I do still have a lot of thoughts. show less
This book has basically the vibes I was expecting, having read Camus before, but not the plot. It's hard to feel much show more sympathy for the narrator. He seems to genuinely have trouble engaging with the world but he also tacitly endorses animal abuse, domestic abuse, assault, racism, and lying to the police even though we know that he knows they are wrong. Oh, and the part where he shoots a stranger 5 times for no reason! The trial is slightly absurdist, as the prosecutor focuses on Meursault's relationship with his mother instead of his actions, but it's hard to argue he shouldn't be convicted for killing a person without any reason or remorse.
This edition was translated by Stuart Gilbert. The beginning of the book is very short choppy sentences, which led me to feel very removed from the narrator. That certainly could have been purposeful, based on the plot, but there's no translator's note so I'm not sure if it's just a translation quirk.
This book is not one I'm going to revisit, but I do still have a lot of thoughts. show less
This “essay” (307 pages in English translation) is an extended analysis of the contradictory positive and negative elements of rebellion and how the negative elements can lead to the excesses of revolution. Rising up against slavery, oppression, injustice and other forms of domination is a positive. However, rebellion also has a potential negative side — the rejection of all restraints on liberty, the nihilist conclusion that everything is permitted and the political principle that the show more ends justify the means, including killing people to achieve a future ideal society. The book is relatively long because Albert Camus looks at these questions in a broad range of contexts: “metaphysical rebellion” against the human condition including the revolt against God who permits suffering (Prometheus, Cain and Abel, Epicurus and Lucretius, DeSade, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Nietzsche, the Surrealists), “historical rebellion” consisting of political and social revolution against oppression (the French Revolution in particular Robespierre and Saint Just, the Russian terrorists of the 19th century, Hegel and Marx, and Russian communism), and art (Dostoyevsky). It is fascinating the way Camus tracks his theme among these various thinkers and movements and draws out the differences and similarities among them.
The fundamental question Camus poses in the essay is whether premeditated murder to achieve a political goal can be justified. The analysis starts with the concept of the absurd which Camus developed in the Myth of Sisyphus. Just as he concluded in the earlier work that suicide was not justified, in this work he rejects a logic of murder. However, he is not willing to deny the positive aspects of revolt because that would amount to acceptance of the status quo with all its injustices. At the same time, he cannot accept the historical logic that leads to revolution ending in a police state. His solution is to assert that there are values outside of history that counter nihilism or a historical logic that worships only the efficacy of results. These values are reflected and arise in the individual’s act of rebellion and include solidarity, equality, freedom of speech, and civil and natural rights. They provide a basis for rules of political action that limit excesses in the exercise of liberty and the establishment of justice. The rebel calls for moderation, not extremism. Violence may be required to respond to violence but should not be employed in an ultimately vain effort to establish a future ideal society. Camus argues that both the end must justify the means and the means must justify the end. The present must not be sacrificed to the future.
Camus contrasts a Mediterranean mentality, going back to the Greeks, based on a love of life and nature against the German ideology exemplified by Hegel and Marx who subject nature and life to history. The German ideology inherits the traditional Christian opposition to nature but has deified history to replace the absent God.
Camus’s views were controversial in his day when many in France still supported communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere and revolts against colonialism (such as in Algeria) called into question the adequacy of a rebellion of moderation. Today little is left of the tradition to use violence to bring about a future ideal society. However, in the face of authoritarianism, inequality, racism and other ills, Camus’s rebel still has many reasons to rise up against injustice. show less
The fundamental question Camus poses in the essay is whether premeditated murder to achieve a political goal can be justified. The analysis starts with the concept of the absurd which Camus developed in the Myth of Sisyphus. Just as he concluded in the earlier work that suicide was not justified, in this work he rejects a logic of murder. However, he is not willing to deny the positive aspects of revolt because that would amount to acceptance of the status quo with all its injustices. At the same time, he cannot accept the historical logic that leads to revolution ending in a police state. His solution is to assert that there are values outside of history that counter nihilism or a historical logic that worships only the efficacy of results. These values are reflected and arise in the individual’s act of rebellion and include solidarity, equality, freedom of speech, and civil and natural rights. They provide a basis for rules of political action that limit excesses in the exercise of liberty and the establishment of justice. The rebel calls for moderation, not extremism. Violence may be required to respond to violence but should not be employed in an ultimately vain effort to establish a future ideal society. Camus argues that both the end must justify the means and the means must justify the end. The present must not be sacrificed to the future.
Camus contrasts a Mediterranean mentality, going back to the Greeks, based on a love of life and nature against the German ideology exemplified by Hegel and Marx who subject nature and life to history. The German ideology inherits the traditional Christian opposition to nature but has deified history to replace the absent God.
Camus’s views were controversial in his day when many in France still supported communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere and revolts against colonialism (such as in Algeria) called into question the adequacy of a rebellion of moderation. Today little is left of the tradition to use violence to bring about a future ideal society. However, in the face of authoritarianism, inequality, racism and other ills, Camus’s rebel still has many reasons to rise up against injustice. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 356
- Also by
- 58
- Members
- 107,523
- Popularity
- #81
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 1,308
- ISBNs
- 2,013
- Languages
- 49
- Favorited
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