Albert Camus biography. Albert Camus short biography

Biography

Albert Camus is a French prose writer, philosopher, essayist, and publicist close to existentialism. Received common noun during his lifetime "Conscience of the West". Laureate Nobel Prize on literature 1957.

Life in Algeria

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 into a French-Algerian family in Algeria, on the Saint-Paul farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by birth, was a wine cellar supervisor for a wine company, served in the light infantry during the First World War, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and died in the hospital. Mother Catherine Sante, Spanish by nationality, semi-deaf and illiterate, moved with Albert and his older brother Lucien to the Bellecourt district (French) Russian. city ​​of Algeria, lived in poverty under the leadership of a headstrong grandmother. To support her family, Kutrin worked first as a factory worker, then as a cleaner.

In 1918, Albert began to visit primary school, which he graduated with honors in 1923. Usually peers in his circle gave up their studies and went to work to help their families, but elementary school teacher Louis Germain was able to convince his relatives of the need for Albert to continue his education, prepared the gifted boy to enter the lyceum and secured a scholarship. Subsequently, Camus gratefully dedicated his Nobel speech to his teacher. At the Lyceum, Albert became deeply acquainted with French culture and read a lot. He began to play football seriously, played for the youth team of the Racing Universitaire d'Alger (English) Russian club, and later claimed that sports and playing in a team influenced the formation of his attitude towards morality and duty. In 1930, Camus had Tuberculosis was discovered, he was forced to interrupt his education and stop playing sports forever (although he retained his love of football throughout his life), and spent several months in a sanatorium. Despite his recovery, long years suffered from the consequences of his illness. Later, due to health reasons, he was denied postgraduate training, and for the same reason he was not drafted into the army.

In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers (English)Russian, where he studied philosophy. While studying at the university, I also read a lot, started keeping diaries, and wrote essays. At this time he was influenced by A. Gide, F. M. Dostoevsky, F. Nietzsche. His friend was the teacher Jean Grenier, a writer and philosopher who had a significant influence on the young Albert Camus. Along the way, Camus was forced to work and changed several professions: a private teacher, a parts salesman, an assistant at a meteorological institute. In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict. In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy with the work “Neoplatonism and Christian Thought” on the influence of Plotinus’ ideas on the theology of Aurelius Augustine. I started working on the story “Happy Death”. At the same time, Camus entered into the problems of existentialism: in 1935 he studied the works of S. Kierkegaard, L. Shestov, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers; in 1936-1937 he became acquainted with the ideas of the absurdity of human existence by A. Malraux.

In my senior years at university I became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935 he joined the French Communist Party, in solidarity with the 1934 uprising in Asturias. He was a member of the local branch of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for connections with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of “Trotskyism.”

In 1936 he created the amateur “Theater of Labor” (French Théâtre du Travail), renamed in 1937 the “Team Theater” (French Théâtre de l'Equipe). In particular, he organized the production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, played Ivan Karamazov. In 1936-1937, he traveled through France, Italy and other countries Central Europe. In 1937, the first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face,” was published.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algerian House of Culture for some time, and in 1938 he was the editor of the magazine Coast, then of the left-wing opposition newspapers Alger Republiken and Soir Republiken. On the pages of these publications, Camus at that time advocated for socially oriented policies and improving the situation of the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censorship after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote mainly essays and journalistic materials. In 1938, the book “Marriage” was published. In January 1939, the first version of the play “Caligula” was written.

After the ban on Soir Republiken in January 1940, Camus and his future wife Francine Faure, a mathematician by training, moved to Oran, where they gave private lessons. Two months later we moved from Algeria to Paris.

War period

In Paris, Albert Camus is a technical editor at the Paris-Soir newspaper. In May 1940, the story “The Outsider” was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French V private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Camus soon joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement and became a member of the underground organization Combat, again in Paris.

The Stranger was published in 1942, and The Myth of Sisyphus in 1943. In 1943, he began publishing in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943 he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with it until the end of his life). During the war, he published under the pseudonym “Letters to to a German friend"(later released separate publication). In 1943, he met Sartre and participated in productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

Post-war years

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat; the publishing house published his previously written works, which soon brought popularity to the writer. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement and personally with Sartre began. He leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”). At this time, he created the plays “State of Siege” and “The Righteous”.

He collaborates with anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists and publishes in their magazines and newspapers Libertaire, Monde Libertaire, Revolucion Proletarian, Solidariad Obrera (publication of the Spanish National Confederation of Labor) and others. Participates in the creation of the International Relations Group.

In 1951, “The Rebel Man” was published in the anarchist magazine Libertaire, where Camus explores the anatomy of human rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Left-wing critics, including Sartre, considered this a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Camus’s support of the French community in Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954 caused even greater criticism from the radical left. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely monitor the political life of Europe; in his diaries he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiment in France and the willingness of the French left to turn a blind eye to what he believed were the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their reluctance to see in the USSR-sponsored " Arabic renaissance“The expansion is not of socialism and justice, but of violence and authoritarianism.

He became increasingly fascinated by the theater; in 1954, he began staging plays based on his own dramatizations and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story "The Fall", on next year A collection of short stories, “Exile and the Kingdom,” is published.

In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." In his speech on the occasion of the award, characterizing his life position, he said that he was “too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that it had too many overseers and that, above all, the wrong course had been taken.”

Death and funeral

On the afternoon of January 4, 1960, the car in which Albert Camus, together with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, nephew of the publisher Gaston Gallimard, was returning from Provence to Paris, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villebleuven, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later; his wife and daughter survived. Among the writer’s personal belongings, a manuscript of the unfinished story “The First Man” and an unused train ticket were found. Albert Camus was buried in the cemetery at Lourmarin in the Luberon region of southern France.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a version according to which the car accident was staged by Soviet intelligence services as revenge on the writer for condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary and supporting Boris Pasternak. Among the people aware of the planned murder, the newspaper named USSR Foreign Minister Shepilov. Michel Onfray, who was preparing the publication of a biography of Camus, rejected this version as an insinuation in the Izvestia newspaper.

In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon, but did not receive the consent of Albert Camus' relatives.

Philosophical views

Camus did not consider himself a philosopher, much less an existentialist. Nevertheless, the work of representatives of this philosophical direction influenced the work of Camus big influence. At the same time, his commitment to existentialist issues was also due to a serious illness (and therefore a constant feeling of the proximity of death), with which he lived since childhood.

Unlike the “rebel” Sartre and the religious existentialists (English) Russian. (Jaspers) Camus believed that the only way to combat the absurd was to recognize its reality. In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus writes that to understand the reasons that force a person to do meaningless work, one must imagine Sisyphus descending from the mountain, finding satisfaction in the clear awareness of the futility and ineffectiveness of his own efforts; According to Camus, practically this attitude to life is realized in permanent rebellion. Many of Camus’s heroes come to a similar state of mind under the influence of circumstances (threat to life, death of loved ones, conflict with own conscience etc.), them further destinies are different.

The highest embodiment of the absurd, according to Camus, are various attempts to forcefully improve society - fascism, Stalinism, etc. Being a humanist and anti-authoritarian socialist, he believed that the fight against violence and injustice “with their own methods” can only give rise to even greater violence and injustice , but, rejecting an understanding of rebellion that does not recognize its positive aspects, in the essay “Rebel Man” he considers rebellion as a way of solidarity with other people and a philosophy of moderation that determines both agreement and disagreement with existing realities; paraphrasing the Cartesian maxim “I rebel, therefore we exist.” Camus identifies two forms of manifestation of rebellion: the first is expressed in revolutionary activities, the second one he prefers, in creativity. At the same time, he remained pessimistic in the belief that despite positive role rebellion in history, it is impossible to finally defeat evil.

Non-religious beliefs

Albert Camus is considered a representative of atheistic existentialism (English) Russian; his views are usually characterized as irreligious and atheistic. Critic of religion; During the preparation of “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus expresses one of the key ideas of his philosophy: “If there is a sin against life, then it apparently lies not in not having hopes, but in relying on life in another world.” and shy away from the merciless greatness of this worldly life.” At the same time, the classification of supporters of atheistic (non-religious) existentialism as atheism is partly conditional, and Camus, along with disbelief in God and the recognition that God is dead, affirms the absurdity of life without God. Camus himself did not consider himself an atheist.

Essays

Prose

Dramaturgy

Essay

Other

Editions in Russian

Years of life: from 07.11.1913 to 04.01.1960

French writer and philosopher, existentialist, Nobel Prize winner in literature.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria, on the San Pol farm near the town of Mondovi. When the writer's father died in the Battle of the Marne at the beginning of the First World War, his mother moved with the children to the city of Algiers.

In Algeria, after graduating from primary school, Camus studied at the lyceum, where he was forced to interrupt his studies for a year in 1930 due to tuberculosis.

In 1932-1937 studied at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy. On Grenier's advice at the university Camus began kept diaries, wrote essays, influenced by the philosophy of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. During his senior years at the university, he became interested in socialist ideas and in the spring of 1935 joined the French Communist Party and conducts propaganda activities among Muslims. He was a member of the local branch of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for connections with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of “Trotskyism.”

In 1937, Camus graduated from the university, defending thesis in philosophy on the topic "Christian metaphysics and Neoplatonism." Camus wanted to continue his academic activities, but due to health reasons he was denied postgraduate studies, for the same reason he was later not drafted into the army.

After graduating from university, Camus briefly headed the Algiers House of Culture and then headed some left-wing opposition newspapers that were closed by military censorship after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote a lot, mainly essays and journalistic materials. In January 1939, the first version of the play “Caligula” was written.

Having lost his job as an editor, Camus moved with his wife to Oran, where they earned a living by giving private lessons, and at the beginning of the war he moved to Paris.

In May 1940, Camus completed work on the novel The Stranger. In December, Camus, not wanting to live in an occupied country, returns to Oran, where he teaches French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Soon Camus joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement, became a member of the underground organization Combat, and returned to Paris.

In 1943, he met and participated in productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat; his previously written works were published, which brought the writer popularity, but in 1947 his gradual break with the leftist movement and personally with Sartre began. As a result, Camus leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”).

In the fifties, Camus gradually abandoned his socialist ideas, condemned the policies of Stalinism and the connivance of the French socialists towards this, which led to an even greater break with former comrades and, in particular, with Sartre.

At this time, Camus became increasingly fascinated by the theater; in 1954, the writer began staging plays based on his own dramatizations, and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story “The Fall,” and the following year a collection of short stories, “Exile and the Kingdom,” was published.

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his acceptance speech, he said that he was “too firmly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even though he believed that the galley stank of herring, that it had too many overseers and that, above all, it had taken the wrong course.” In the last years of his life, Camus wrote practically nothing.

On January 4, 1960, Albert Camus died in a car accident while returning from Provence to Paris. The writer died instantly. The writer's death occurred at approximately 13:54. Michel Gallimard, who was also in the car, died in hospital two days later, but the writer's wife and daughter survived. . Albert Camus was buried in the town of Lourmarin in the Luberon region in the south of France. In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon.

In 1936, Camus created the amateur “People's Theater”, organized, in particular, a production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, where he himself played Ivan Karamazov.

Writer's Awards

1957 - in literature “For his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience”

Bibliography

(1937)
(1939)
(1942)
(1942)
(1944]early edition – 1941)
Misunderstanding (1944)
(1947)
State of Siege (1948)
Letters to a German Friend (1948) under the pseudonym Louis Nieuville)
The Righteous (1949)
Topical Notes, Book 1 (1950)
(1951)
Topical Notes, Book 2 (1953)
Summer (1954)
(1956)
Requiem for a Nun (1956) adaptation of the novel by William Faulkner)
Exile and Kingdom (1957)
(1957)
Topical Notes, Book 3 (1958)
Demons (1958) adaptation of the novel by F. M. Dostoevsky)
Diaries, May 1935 - February 1942
Diaries, January 1942 - March 1951
Diaries, March 1951 - December 1959
Happy death (1936-1938)

Film adaptations of works, theatrical performances

1967 - The Outsider (Italy, L. Visconti)
1992 - Plague
1997 - Caligula
2001 - Fate (based on the novel "The Outsider", Türkiye)

Name: Albert Camus

Age: 46 years old

Activity: writer, philosopher

Family status: was married

Albert Camus: biography

French writer, essayist and playwright Albert Camus was literary representative of his generation. Obsession philosophical problems the meaning of life and search true values provided the writer with cult status among readers and brought him the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44.

Childhood and youth

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria, then part of France. His French father was killed during the First World War when Albert was one year old. The boy's mother, of Spanish origin, was able to provide a small income and housing in a poor area of ​​Algeria thanks to unskilled labor.

Albert's childhood was poor and sunny. Living in Algeria made Camus feel rich due to the temperate climate. Judging by Camus's statement, he "lived in poverty, but also in sensual delight." His Spanish heritage gave him a sense of self-worth in poverty and a passion for honor. Camus began writing at an early age.

At the Algerian University, he brilliantly studied philosophy - the value and meaning of life, focusing on the comparison of Hellenism and Christianity. While still a student, the guy founded a theater, at the same time directed and acted in plays. At the age of 17, Albert fell ill with tuberculosis, which did not allow him to engage in sports, military and teaching activities. Camus worked in various jobs before becoming a journalist in 1938.

His first published works were The Backside and the Face in 1937 and The Wedding Feast in 1939, a collection of essays on the meaning of life and its joys, as well as its meaninglessness. Albert Camus's writing style marked a break with the traditional bourgeois novel. He was less interested in psychological analysis than in philosophical problems.

Camus developed the idea of ​​absurdism, which provided the theme for much of his early works. The absurd is the gap between a person's desire for happiness and a world that he can understand rationally, and real world, which is confused and irrational. The second stage of Camus's thought arose from the first: man must not only accept the absurd universe, but also “revolt” against it. This uprising is not political, but in the name of traditional values.

Books

First novel by Camus The Stranger, published in 1942, dealt with the negative aspect of man. The book is about a young clerk named Meursault, who is the narrator and main character. Meursault is alien to the expected human emotions; he is a “sleepwalker” in life. The novel's crisis unfolds on the beach when the hero, caught in a quarrel through no fault of his own, shoots an Arab.

The second part of the novel is devoted to his trial for murder and sentence to death, which he understands in much the same way as why he killed the Arab. Meursault is absolutely honest in describing his feelings, and it is this honesty that makes him a “stranger” in the world and ensures a guilty verdict. The overall situation symbolizes the absurd nature of life, and this effect is enhanced by the book's deliberately flat and colorless style.

Camus returned to Algeria in 1941 and completed his next book"The Myth of Sisyphus", also published in 1942. This is a philosophical essay about the nature of the meaninglessness of life. The mythical character Sisyphus, condemned to eternity, lifts a heavy stone up a mountain only to have it roll back down again. Sisyphus becomes a symbol of humanity and achieves a certain sad victory in his constant efforts.

In 1942, returning to France, Camus joined the Resistance group and was engaged in underground journalism until the Liberation in 1944, when he became editor of the newspaper Boy for 3 years. Also during this period, his first two plays were staged: “Misunderstanding” in 1944 and “Caligula” in 1945.

The main role in the first play was played by actress Maria Cazares. Work with Camus turned into a deeper relationship that lasted 3 years. Maria remained on friendly terms with Albert until his death. The main topic The plays became the meaninglessness of life and the finality of death. It was in dramaturgy that Camus felt most successful.

In 1947, Albert published his second novel, The Plague. This time Camus focused on on the positive side person. Describing the fictional attack of the bubonic plague in the Algerian city of Oran, he revisited the theme of absurdism, expressed by the senseless and completely undeserved suffering and death caused by the plague.

The narrator, Dr. Rieux, explained his ideal of "honesty" - a person who retains strength of character and tries his best, even if unsuccessfully, to fight against an outbreak of disease.

At one level, the novel can be seen as a fictional representation of German occupation in France. "The Plague" became most widely known among readers as a symbol of the fight against evil and suffering - the main moral problems of humanity.

Camus's next important book was The Rebellious Man. The collection includes 3 important philosophical works writer, without whom it is difficult to fully understand his concept of existentialism. In his work he asks questions: what is freedom and truth, what does being really consist of? free man. Life according to Camus is rebellion. And it is worth organizing an uprising in order to truly live.

Personal life

On June 16, 1934, Camus married Simone Hy, who had previously been engaged to the writer's friend Max-Paul Foucher. However, the happy personal life of the newlyweds did not last long - the couple separated by July 1936, and the divorce was finalized in September 1940.

On December 3, 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematics teacher whom he had met in 1937. Although Albert loved his wife, he did not believe in the institution of marriage. Despite this, the couple had twin daughters, Catherine and Jean, born on September 5, 1945.

Death

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his works. That same year, Albert began working on the fourth important novel, and was also going to become the director of a large Parisian theater.

On January 4, 1960, he died in a car accident in the small town of Vilbleven. The writer was 46 years old. Although many have speculated that the cause of the writer's death was a Soviet-organized accident, there is no evidence of this. Camus was survived by his wife and children.

Two of his works were published posthumously: "A Happy Death", written in the late 1930s and published in 1971, and "First Man" (1994), which Camus wrote at the time of his death. The death of the writer was a tragic loss for literature, since he still had to write works at a more mature and conscious age and expand his creative biography.

After the death of Albert Camus, many world directors took up the works of the Frenchman to film them. There have already been 6 films based on the philosopher’s books, and one artistic biography, which provides original quotes from the writer and shows his real photos.

Quotes

"Every generation tends to consider itself called upon to remake the world"

“I don’t want to be a genius, I have enough of the problems I face trying to be just a person.”

"The knowledge that we are going to die turns our life into a joke"

"Travel, as the greatest and most serious science, helps us find ourselves again"

Bibliography

• 1937 - "Inside and Out"
• 1942 - "The Outsider"
• 1942 - "The Myth of Sisyphus"
• 1947 - "Plague"
• 1951 - "The Rebel Man"
• 1956 - "Fall"
• 1957 - "Hospitality"
• 1971 - "Happy Death"
• 1978 - "Travel Diary"
• 1994 - "First Man"

Albert Camus (French: Albert Camus). Born November 7, 1913 in Mondovi (now Drean), Algeria - died January 4, 1960 in Villeblevin (France). A French writer and philosopher close to existentialism, he was called the “Conscience of the West.” Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

Albert Camus is considered a representative of atheistic existentialism; his views are usually characterized as irreligious and atheistic. Critic of religion; During the preparation of “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus expresses one of the key ideas of his philosophy: “If there is a sin against life, then it apparently lies not in not having hopes, but in relying on life in another world.” and shy away from the merciless greatness of this worldly life.” At the same time, the classification of supporters of atheistic (non-religious) existentialism as atheism is partly conditional, and Camus, along with disbelief in God and the recognition that God is dead, affirms the absurdity of life without God. Camus himself did not consider himself an atheist.

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 into a French-Algerian family in Algeria, on the Saint-Paul farm near the town of Mondovi. His father, Lucien Camus, an Alsatian by birth, was a wine cellar supervisor for a wine company, served in the light infantry during the First World War, was mortally wounded in the Battle of the Marne in 1914 and died in the hospital. Mother Catherine Sante, Spanish by nationality, semi-deaf and illiterate, moved with Albert and his older brother Lucien to the Belcourt district of Algiers, where they lived in poverty under the leadership of a headstrong grandmother. To support her family, Kutrin worked first in a factory, then as a cleaner.

In 1918, Albert began attending primary school, from which he graduated with honors in 1923. Usually peers in his circle gave up their studies and went to work to help their families, but elementary school teacher Louis Germain was able to convince his relatives of the need for Albert to continue his education, prepared the gifted boy to enter the lyceum and secured a scholarship. Subsequently, Camus gratefully dedicated his Nobel speech to his teacher. At the Lyceum, Albert became deeply acquainted with French culture and read a lot. He began to play football seriously, played for the youth team of the Racing Universitaire d'Alger club, and later claimed that sports and playing in a team influenced the formation of his attitude towards morality and duty. In 1930, Camus was diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was forced to interrupted his education and stopped playing sports forever (although he retained his love for football throughout his life), spent several months in a sanatorium. Despite his recovery, he suffered for many years from the consequences of his illness. Later, for health reasons, he was denied postgraduate education, for the same reason reason he was not drafted into the army.

In 1932-1937, Albert Camus studied at the University of Algiers (English)Russian, where he studied philosophy. While studying at the university, I also read a lot, started keeping diaries, and wrote essays. At this time I was influenced by. His friend was the teacher Jean Grenier, a writer and philosopher who had a significant influence on the young Albert Camus. Along the way, Camus was forced to work and changed several professions: a private teacher, a parts salesman, an assistant at a meteorological institute. In 1934 he married Simone Iye (divorced in 1939), an extravagant nineteen-year-old girl who turned out to be a morphine addict. In 1935 he received a bachelor's degree and in May 1936 a master's degree in philosophy with the work “Neoplatonism and Christian Thought” on the influence of Plotinus’ ideas on the theology of Aurelius Augustine. I started working on the story “Happy Death”. At the same time, Camus entered into the problems of existentialism: in 1935 he studied the works of S. Kierkegaard, L. Shestov, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers; in 1936-1937 he became acquainted with the ideas of the “absurdity of life” by A. Malraux.

During my senior years at university, I became interested in socialist ideas. In the spring of 1935 he joined the French Communist Party, in solidarity with the 1934 uprising in Asturias. He was a member of the local branch of the French Communist Party for more than a year, until he was expelled for connections with the Algerian People's Party, accusing him of “Trotskyism.”

In 1936 he created the amateur “Theater of Labor” (French Théâtre du Travail), renamed in 1937 the “Team Theater” (French Théâtre de l'Equipe). In particular, he organized the production of “The Brothers Karamazov” based on Dostoevsky, played Ivan Karamazov. In 1936-1937 he traveled through France, Italy and the countries of Central Europe. In 1937, the first collection of essays, “The Inside Out and the Face,” was published.

After graduating from university, Camus headed the Algerian House of Culture for some time, and in 1938 he was the editor of the magazine Coast, then of the left-wing opposition newspapers Alger Republiken and Soir Republiken. On the pages of these publications, Camus at that time advocated for socially oriented policies and improving the situation of the Arab population of Algeria. Both newspapers were closed by military censorship after the outbreak of World War II. During these years, Camus wrote mainly essays and journalistic materials. In 1938, the book “Marriage” was published. In January 1939, the first version of the play “Caligula” was written.

After the ban on Soir Republiken in January 1940, Camus and his future wife Francine Faure, a mathematician by training, moved to Oran, where they gave private lessons. Two months later we moved from Algeria to Paris.

In Paris, Albert Camus is a technical editor at the newspaper Paris-Soir. In May 1940, the story “The Outsider” was completed. In December of the same year, the opposition-minded Camus was fired from Paris-Soir and, not wanting to live in an occupied country, he returned to Oran, where he taught French at a private school. In February 1941, The Myth of Sisyphus was completed.

Camus soon joined the ranks of the Resistance Movement and became a member of the underground organization Combat, again in Paris.

The Stranger was published in 1942, and The Myth of Sisyphus in 1943. In 1943, he began publishing in the underground newspaper Komba, then became its editor. From the end of 1943 he began working at the Gallimard publishing house (he collaborated with it until the end of his life). During the war, he published “Letters to a German Friend” under a pseudonym (later published as a separate publication). In 1943, he met Sartre and participated in productions of his plays (in particular, it was Camus who first uttered the phrase “Hell is others” from the stage).

After the end of the war, Camus continued to work at Combat and published his previously written works, which brought popularity to the writer. In 1947, his gradual break with the left movement and personally with Sartre began. He leaves Combe and becomes an independent journalist - he writes journalistic articles for various publications (later published in three collections called “Topical Notes”). At this time, he created the plays “State of Siege” and “The Righteous”.

He collaborates with anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists and publishes in their magazines and newspapers Libertaire, Monde Libertaire, Revolucion Proletarian, Solidariad Obrera (publication of the Spanish National Confederation of Labor) and others. Participates in the creation of the International Relations Group.

In 1951, “The Rebel Man” was published in the anarchist magazine Libertaire, where Camus explores the anatomy of human rebellion against the surrounding and internal absurdity of existence. Left-wing critics, including Sartre, considered this a rejection of the political struggle for socialism (which, according to Camus, leads to the establishment of authoritarian regimes like Stalin's). Camus’s support of the French community in Algeria after the Algerian War that began in 1954 caused even greater criticism from the radical left. For some time, Camus collaborated with UNESCO, but after Spain, led by Franco, became a member of this organization in 1952, he stopped his work there. Camus continues to closely monitor the political life of Europe, in his diaries he regrets the growth of pro-Soviet sentiment in France and the willingness of the French left to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the communist authorities in Eastern Europe, their reluctance to see the expansion of socialism and justice in the USSR-sponsored “Arab revival”, and violence and authoritarianism.

He became increasingly fascinated by the theater; in 1954, he began staging plays based on his own dramatizations and was negotiating the opening of the Experimental Theater in Paris. In 1956, Camus wrote the story “The Fall,” and the following year a collection of short stories, “Exile and the Kingdom,” was published.

In 1957, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." In his speech on the occasion of the award, characterizing his life position, he said that “he was too tightly chained to the galley of his time not to row with others, even believing that the galley stank of herring, that there were too many overseers on it and that, above all, , the wrong course has been taken.”

On the afternoon of January 4, 1960, the car in which Albert Camus, together with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, nephew of the publisher Gaston Gallimard, was returning from Provence to Paris, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villebleuven, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later; his wife and daughter survived. Among the writer’s personal belongings, a manuscript of the unfinished story “The First Man” and an unused train ticket were found. Albert Camus was buried in the cemetery at Lourmarin in the Luberon region of southern France.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a version according to which the car accident was staged by Soviet intelligence services as revenge on the writer for condemning the Soviet invasion of Hungary and supporting. Among the people aware of the planned murder, the newspaper named USSR Foreign Minister Shepilov. Michel Onfray, who was preparing the publication of a biography of Camus, rejected this version as an insinuation in the Izvestia newspaper.

In November 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed transferring the writer's ashes to the Pantheon, but did not receive the consent of Albert Camus' relatives.

On January 4, 1960, Paris was shocked by terrible news. The car in which the famous writer Albert Camus was traveling with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, returning from Provence, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree near the town of Villebleuven, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in hospital two days later; his wife and daughter survived. Famous writer, the youngest Nobel Prize winner in 1957, died on the spot, he was only 46 years old.

“The Conscience of the West” – Albert Camus

Albert Camus is a French writer, journalist, essayist, philosopher, and member of the French Resistance movement. One of the key figures in world literature. He, along with Sartre, stood at the origins of existentialism. But later he moved away from him, becoming a continuer of the tradition of philosophical prose. Camus is one of the most ardent humanists in the history of literature. He was called the “conscience of the West.” His ethics prohibit murder, even if it is committed in the name of a great idea; Camus rejects those who pretend to be Prometheans and are ready to sacrifice others for the sake of building a bright future.

After the accident, rumors spread throughout Paris that it was not just an accident, but a contract killing. For my short life Camus made many enemies. He led the resistance movement against colonialism. But he was against the terror unleashed in his homeland against the colonialists. He was not tolerated either by the right-wing French, who defended French colonial rule in Algeria, or by the terrorists who wanted to destroy the colonialists. He wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Camus was born in Algeria on November 7, 1913. poor family agricultural workers. My father was called to the front during the First World War, and two weeks later he was killed. An illiterate, semi-deaf mother moved with her children to a poor area.

In 1923, her son graduated from primary school and had to go to work to help his mother feed the family. But the teacher persuaded the mother to send the boy to the lyceum. The teacher said that someday her son would bring glory to the family. “He has an undoubted talent, you will be proud of him,” he insisted, and the mother agreed to send her son to the lyceum, where he showed his worth the best side. Then his penchant for football was revealed, he served big hopes as an athlete.

After the Lyceum, Albert entered the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Algiers. Played soccer. He was predicted to have a brilliant sports future. But at the age of 17 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and had to say goodbye to football. The future was vague, but it belonged only to him. “I was somewhere halfway between sunshine and poverty. Poverty prevented me from believing that all was well in history. And the sun taught me that history is not everything. Change lives, yes, but not the world in which I will create.”

Studying had to be paid for and Albert did not disdain any kind of work: a private teacher, a salesman of spare parts, an assistant at a meteorological institute. He was successful with women. But Simone, his first wife, turned out to be a morphine addict. The marriage broke up.

In 1935, Camus became interested in Marxism and joined the Algerian Communist Party. He dreamed of liberating the working man. However, he quickly discovered that the policy of the Communist Party was opportunistic and tied to Moscow. In 1937 he left the party. Together with her theater troupe, the Theater of Labor, which was associated with communist cells, Camus traveled throughout Algeria. He was both a director and an actor. Wrote for the theater. I planned to study further. But worsening tuberculosis did not allow this. But he didn’t stop him from writing. Camus became a journalist for several newspapers. The main theme is the terrible situation of the indigenous population of Algeria. “I did not learn freedom according to Marx,” he writes in his notebooks“Poverty taught me this.”

One after another, his books “The Inside Out and the Face”, “Marriage”, and the play “Caligula” began to be published.
In the spring of 1940, Camus moved to France. He headed the Paris Soir newspaper. He married his classmate Francine Faure. He needed a quiet home and care so much loving woman. Quiet family happiness didn't last long. On June 25, 1940, France capitulated. Camus was fired from his post as editor. Left for evacuation. But two years later he returned to Paris and actively became involved in the activities of the French resistance. He became a member of the underground organization "Comba" and met the actress Maria Cazarez, for whom he developed a deep and passionate love. It was a dangerous and difficult time. He wrote, and before his eyes the defeat of Paris by the brown plague took place.

A cocktail of love and risk - that’s what Camus’ life was like at this time. The love idyll with Marie lasted a year. And in 1944, Francine returned to Paris to her husband. Marie was shocked, it turns out that her lover is married. She gave Camus a week to think about it so that he could make the final choice between her and Francine. It was unbearable. Albert was torn between love and duty. Essentially, he married Francine not for love, but because of his illness. He succumbed to weakness. But he was grateful to her for her care and warmth. For being there for her difficult moments life. Now his wife needed his protection. She was pregnant. He couldn't leave her. Maria made the decision. Having learned about the twins, she herself left Albert.

Camus suffered greatly. Wrote her long letters. Love and duty fought to the death inside him. This personal drama unfolded against the backdrop of events in Paris. At the end of the war, it was time for reckoning with those who supported the Nazis. A wave of lynchings and reprisals began. Camus was categorically against terror and revenge; he was convinced that one should not take the side of the guillotine. The witch hunt for those who collaborated with the fascists knocked him out of his creative rut. Every article about him in the newspapers is indignation: “Who are you with, Mr. Writer?”

And he is the only one among French writers, who opposed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Camus was convinced that the bombing was not the final victory, it was the beginning of a new, more debilitating war. And she needs to be stopped.

In 1948, three years after the breakup, Albert one day saw Marie on the street. And it all started all over again. There was nothing they could do about it. It was a match made in heaven. Happiness, intoxicating and all-consuming, covered them, and nothing could separate them anymore. Now he is a famous writer. He is no longer perceived as the lover of a famous actress. He once said: “Not to be loved is just failure, not to love is misfortune.” He was lucky enough to experience both at the same time. And yet he was happy because he loved.

He never even thought about leaving Francine. But his wife annoyed him. Creativity saved him from family troubles and a double life. “He is free who does not have to lie,” wrote Camus. In his work, he was extremely honest with the reader and himself.

At this time he wrote his famous work“The Rebel Man” is an essay about rebellion and man. In it, Camus explored the anatomy of rebellion and came to shocking conclusions. Rebellion against the absurd is natural and normal. But revolution is violence leading to tyranny. It is aimed at suppressing human rebellion against the absurd. This means revolution is unacceptable. So Camus debunked the Marxist idea. And he completely broke with the existentialists. He became a humanist.“I only hate executioners,” he wrote. - Other people are different. They act most often out of ignorance. They don’t know what they are doing, so most often they commit evil. But they are not executioners." This was an attempt to educate others.

“The Rebel Man” quarreled Camus with Sartre, although before that they had been inseparable for 10 years. Thanks to this friendship, Camus's work is still mistakenly attributed to the philosophy of existentialism. “I have too few points of contact with the fashionable teaching of existentialism, the conclusions of which are false” , wrote Camus.

Back in 1945, intoxicated by victory, he and Sartre argued fiercely about whether it was possible to sacrifice their inner feelings for the common good. Sartre stated: “It is impossible to make a revolution without getting your hands dirty.” Camus believed that “there is no accident in the choice of what can dishonor you”. In "The Rebellious Man" Camus encroached on the sacred. He criticized the ideology of Marxism.

He examines in this work what rebellion leads to. Yes, it can lead to liberation. But a side effect is that Human-Gods, Prometheans, appear, who then drive people into concentration camps. The scandal was unimaginable. Camus was criticized by both the left and the right. A frantic persecution of the writer began. L'Humanité declared Camus a "warmonger." Sartre published a play, The Devil and God, which ended with the words: “The kingdom of man begins, and in it I will be an executioner and a butcher”. Sartre finally went over to the side of the executioner. That is, he directly called himself the one whom Camus hated. Further relationships were impossible.

In the fall of 1957, Albert Camus was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the wording was: “for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience.” It was like thunder among clear skies. Camus was at a loss. His “Rebellious Man” is not scolded unless he is lazy; he is bullied and ridiculed. And here prestigious award. Camus is confused.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Pasternak, Samuel Beckett, Andre Malraux were nominated. “Malraux will receive the prize,” Camus repeats like a spell. But he, the youngest of the nominees, had to go to Stockholm. He considered himself unworthy of such recognition. At some point I even wanted to refuse the award, send Nobel speech by mail. Friends convinced him to read it in person.

« Every generation is convinced that its destiny is to remake the world. Mine already knows that he cannot change this world. But his task is even greater. It is to prevent this world from perishing. I am too firmly attached to the galley of our time not to row with others, even if I am sure that the galley stinks of herring, and there are too many overseers in it, and the wrong course has been taken" The performance was met with applause.

One student from Algeria asked the writer: “You have written so many books, but you have done nothing for your home country? Will Algeria be free? Camus replied: “I stand for justice. But I am against terror and, if I have the chance, I will not defend Algeria, but my mother.”

On the streets of it hometown, indeed, shots were fired and terrorist attacks took place, the victims of which were innocent people, his mother could have become.

Apart from a small house in Provence, my first home, the Camus Prize did not bring me any other joy. As soon as it became known that he had received the prestigious award, the newspapers were full of mocking headlines. “What are such outstanding ideas? His creations lack depth and imagination. The Nobel Committee rewards wasted talent!” The bullying began. “Look who was awarded the Nobel Prize? His own peace and his mother’s suffering are dearer to him than the whole country.” The Algerian rebels were seething with indignation. "He betrayed the interests native people" The Soviet press reacted most negatively. “It is absolutely obvious,” Pravda wrote, “that he received the award for political reasons for attacks on the USSR. But I was once a member of the Communist Party.”
It is not surprising that after the death of Camus, many began to say that the accident was staged by KGB agents.

Or maybe Camus decided to take his own life? Family and love drama, break with Sartre, persecution in the press. “There is always something in a person that rejects love, that part of his being that wants to die. My whole life is a story of delayed suicide.” , he wrote in “The Myth of Sisyphus.” But people who knew him well said that he was far from suicidal and would not risk the lives of his close friends who were sitting in the same car with him.

What happened on the road from Provence to Paris in 1960? Most likely an accident. "My most cherished wish“a quiet death that would not make people dear to me worry too much,” he wrote shortly before his death. But there was no quiet death. The manuscript of the autobiographical novel “The First Man” was found in the writer’s travel bag. The author’s remark “The book must be unfinished” was preserved in the outlines. His last book remained unfinished, like his family life and love, like his whole life, which ended so suddenly. But, apparently, his soul was ready for this.

“If the soul exists, it would be wrong to think that it is given to us already created. It happens on earth throughout life. Life itself is nothing more than this long and painful birth. When the creation of the soul, which man owes to himself and to suffering, is completed, death comes.” (A. Camus. The Myth of Sisyphus).