Albert Camus Biography

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913. He died on January 4, 1960. Albert Camus was a philosopher, French writer, and journalist. In 1957, at the age of 44, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the second-youngest winner in history. Camus' works include "Strangers", "Plague", "The Myth of Sisyphus", "The Fallen" and "The Rebel". Camus was born in French Algeria to black-skinned parents. He spent his childhood in a poor community and later studied philosophy at the University of Algiers. He was in Paris in 1940 when the Germans invaded France during World War II. Camus tried to escape, but eventually joined the French Resistance, where he served as the editor-in-chief of the illegal newspaper Combat. 

After the war, he was a famous person and gave lectures all over the world. He was married twice but had many extramarital affairs. Camus was very active politically. He was a part of the left and opposed the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. Camus was a moralist and was inclined to anarchy syndicalism. He was a member of many organizations seeking European integration. During the Algerian War (1954-1962), he maintained a neutral position and advocated a multicultural and pluralistic Algeria. This position caused controversy and was rejected by most political parties. In philosophy, Camus's views led to the rise of a philosophy called absurdism, a movement against the rise of nihilism. He is also considered an existentialist, even though he firmly rejected the term throughout his life.

Early Childhood

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, in Mondovì that is French Algeria. His mother Catherine Hélène Camus was French and had Balearic Spanish descent. His father Lucien Camus was a poor French agricultural worker who died in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during the First World War. Camus never knew him. Camus, his mother, and other relatives spent their childhood in the Belcourt region of Algiers, and they did not have much basic material wealth. He was a second-generation Frenchman in Algeria, a French territory from 1830 to 1962.

His grandfather, along with many others of his generation, moved to Algeria in the first decades of the 19th century to live a better life. Therefore, he is called pied-noir, which is a slang term for a French-born in Algeria. His identity and poor origin have had a significant impact on his later life. However, Camus was a French citizen, while the Arab or Berber residents of Algeria are in a lower legal status. In his childhood, Camus had a keen interest in football and swimming.

Camus Education

Under the influence of his teacher Louis Germain, Camus received a scholarship in 1924 and continued to study in a famous school (middle school) near Algiers. In 1930, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Because it was a contagious disease, he moved out of the house and stayed with Gustave Acault, the butcher's uncle, who had affected young Camus. It was at this time that Camus turned to philosophy, under the guidance of his philosophy professor, Jean Grenier. The ancient Greek philosopher and Friedrich Nietzsche left a deep impression on him.

During that time, he could only study part-time. In order to make money, he did odd jobs as a private teacher, auto parts clerk, and assistant to the Institute of Meteorology. In 1933, Camus studied at the University of Algiers and completed his Bachelor of Philosophy in 1936, after introducing his thesis on Plotinus. Camus became interested in early Christian philosophers, but Nietzsche and Schopenhauer paved the way for pessimism and atheism. Camus also studied novelists and philosophers such as Stendhal, Herman Melville, Dostoevsky, and Franz Kafka. In 1933, he also met Simone Siere, a partner of Camus's friend, who would become his first wife.

Camus served as a goalkeeper for the youth team of Algiers Racing University from 1928 to 1930. Camus' team spirit, brotherhood, and sense of common purpose deeply attracted Camus. In-game reports, he is often praised for his passion and courage. When he contracted tuberculosis at the age of 17, his football ambitions disappeared. Camus made a comparison between football, human existence, morality, and personal identity. For him, the simple ethics of football contradicts the complex ethics imposed by authorities such as the state and church.

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Figure: Albert Camus

The Works of Albert Camus

Camus' first work was a play called Révolte dans les Asturies co-written with three friends in May 1936. The subject was the Spanish miner’s uprising in 1934, which was brutally suppressed by the Spanish government. Around 1,500 and 2,000 people died. In May 1937, he wrote his first book L`Envers et le Droit. Both are published by Edmond Charlot's small publishing house. Albert Camus' books and his work were divided into three cycles. Each cycle consists of a novel, an essay, and a drama. The first is the absurd cycle formed by L`Étranger, Le Mythe de Sysiphe, and Caligula. 

The second is the resistance cycle, including La Peste, L`Homme révolté (rebel), and Les Justes. Third, the love cycle is made up of nemesis. Each cycle is a test on a topic, using pagan mythology and including biblical topics. The book of the first cycle was published between 1942 and 1944, but the subject was conceived earlier and dates back to at least 1936. Through this cycle, Camus intends to pose a question about the human condition, discuss the world as an absurd place and warn about the consequences of human totalitarianism. Albert Camus' books continue to guide many youngsters. Camus started his work in the second cycle of Algeria in the last months of 1942, when the Germans were arriving in North Africa.

In the second cycle, Camus used Prometheus, described as a revolutionary humanist, to emphasize the nuances between revolution and rebellion. He analyzed all aspects of the rebellion, its metaphysics, its connection with politics, and examined it through the lens of modernity, history, and the absence of God.

Role Of Albert Camus in Algeria

Camus was born in Algeria to French parents. He is familiar with French institutional racism against Arabs and Berbers, but he does not belong to the wealthy elite. He had poor living conditions when he was a child, but he is a French citizen, so he has the right to enjoy the rights of a citizen, most Arabs and Berbers in the country are not. Camus was a staunch defender of the "New Mediterranean Culture''. This was his vision of embracing the multi-ethnic Algerian people and opposing Latin, which is the pro-fascist and anti-Semitist ideology popular among other PiedsNoir or French or Algerian-born Europeans.

For Camus, this vision summed up the Greek humanism that survived among the ordinary people of the Mediterranean. His 1938 speech on the "New Mediterranean Culture'' represented Camus' most systematic statement of his views at this time. Camus also supported Blum-Viollet's proposal to grant Algerians full French citizenship in the declaration and defended this assimilation proposal on the basis of radical egalitarianism. In 1939, Camus wrote a series of articles on the poor living conditions of the Kabili Highlands residents for the Republic of Algeria. He advocated for economic, educational, and political reforms in emergency situations.

Camus in Politics 

Camus is a moralist, he claims that morality should guide politics. Although he did not deny that morality will change over time, he rejected the classical Marxist doctrine that history defines morality. Camus also harshly criticized autocratic communism, especially in the context of the Soviet regime that he considered totalitarian. Camus denounced the Soviet defenders and their decision to demand total freedom from slavery. As a supporter of liberal socialism, he asserted that the Soviet Union is not socialism and that the United States is not liberalism. His fierce criticism of the Soviet Union led him to clash with others on the political left, especially his friend Jean-Paul Sartre. During World War II, Camus actively participated in the French resistance to the German occupation of France, writing and editing for the famous Combat magazine of the resistance movement.

Speaking of the cooperation between France and the German occupiers, he wrote: "The only moral value now is courage, which is useful in judging the puppets and charlatans who claim to speak on behalf of the people." After the liberation of France, Camus commented: "This country does not need Talleyrand, but St. Just." The bloody reality of the postwar tribunal soon changed his mind. Camus leans toward anarchism, which intensified in the 1950semergencies when he began to believe that the Soviet model was morally bankrupt. Camus is firmly opposed to any form of exploitation, authority and property, bosses, state, and centralization. Philosophy professor David Sherman believed that Camus was an anarchist trade unionist. Graeme Nicholson viewed Camus as an existential anarchist.

Death of Camus

Camus died in a car accident near Sens at Le Grand Fossard, Villebourg, on January 4, 1960, at the age of 46. During the New Year holidays in 1960, he and his family, his editor Michel Gallimard de Éditions Gallimard, and Gallimard's wife, Janine and their daughter, spent the New Year holidays at their home in Lourmarin, Vaucluse. Camus's wife and children returned to Paris by train on January 2, but Camus decided to retrieve the luxurious Facel Vega HK500 from Gallimard. The car collided with a banana tree on a long straight section of the National Highway. Camus, who was sitting in the passenger seat, was killed on the spot. A few days later, Galimad died, although his wife and daughter were not harmed. It is speculated that Camus was assassinated by the KGB for criticizing the atrocities of the Soviet Union.

Albert Camus a Life- Legacy After Death

Camus's philosophical novels and essays remain influential. After his death, with the rise (and decline) of the New Left, people became interested in Camus. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, interest in his alternative path to communism resurfaced. He is remembered for his sceptical humanitarianism and his support for political tolerance, dialogue, and civil rights. Although Camus was associated with anti-Soviet communism and even went so far as anarchism, some neoliberals tried to link him to their policies, for example, French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The suggestion to move his body to the Pantheon has angered many leftists. Albert Camus books still continue to serve as a guiding light for youngsters.