Glossary entry for
Camus, Albert

Albert Camus (born: November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria; died: January 4, 1960) earned a worldwide reputation as a novelist and essayist and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. Through his writings, and in some measure against his will, he became the leading moral voice of his generation during the 1950s.

Camus studied at the University of Algiers, earning a degree in philosophy. He then relocated to Metropolitan France and took up journalism. In 1938, he accepted a post with the left-wing newspaper Alger-Républicain where he served alternately as sub-editor, social and political reporter, leader-writer, and book-reviewer. After World War II broke out, Camus used his literary talents to support the French Resistance, taking on the editorship of Combat, an important underground paper. After the war, however, he gave up politics and journalism and devoted himself to writing. He soon established an international reputation with such works as The Stranger (1946), The Plague (1948), The Rebel (1954) and The Myth of Sisyphus (1955).

Camus was killed in an automobile accident near Sens, France in 1960, and is buried in the cemetary at Lourmarin in Provence.

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