About:
Albert Camus
Scott Choi
David Kim
Background
• Origin
– November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960
– Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria
– Mother was half-deaf; Father died in Battle of the
Marne in WWI
• Allies (including French) defeats Germany
• Grew up in poor conditions
• University of Algeria
– Tuberculosis
– Odd jobs i.e. private tutor, car parts clerk, assistant at
Meteorological Institute
Background (cont’d)
• Married to:
– Simone Hie
• Morphine addict
– Francine Faure
• Loved her, but denounced
marriage as unnatural
• Twins
• Affairs
Political Affiliations
• French Communist Party (1935)
– Way to fight inequalities b/w Europeans and
natives in Algeria
• Algerian People’s Party
– Denounced as Trotskyite
• French anarchist movement
Philosophy
• Absurdism
– No humans will find true meaning in their
universe
• Existentialist
– Humans are solely accountable for their meaning
in life
• Did not like to be considered existentialist
Facts
• Atheist
– But later in life touted the idea that salvation and
meaning is longed for
• Anti-Totalitarian
– Disliked Nazi’s and was within French Resistance
• Anti-Capital Punishment
– Due to war, he appreciated life more
• Meursault’s Death
Novels
• The Rebels (1951)
– After war, he analyzed rebellion and revolution
and expressed his Anti-communist view
• The Plague (1947)
– Questions destiny and human conditions after
everyone around the main character is dying
• The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
– Introduces absurdism.
• The Happy Death (1971)
– Patrice Mersault
Career
• Nobel Prize in Literature (1957)
• Humanitarian efforts (UNESCO) until Spain
accepted into United Nations
• Pacifist
– Resisted capital punishment
DISCUSSION!!!
• “To be happy we must not be too concerned
with others.”
• “For if there is a sin against life, it consists
perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in
hoping for another life and in eluding the
implacable grandeur of this life.”
Albert Camus
Fini