Albert Camus (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French pied-noir author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. Although often cited as a proponent of existentialism, the philosophy with which Camus was associated during his own lifetime, he rejected this particular label. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..."
In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement after his split with Garry Davis's Citizens of the World movement, of which the surrealist André Breton was also a member. The formation of this group, according to Camus, was intended to "denounce two ideologies found in both the USSR and the USA" regarding their idolatry of technology.
Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling, and the first African-born writer to receive the award. He is the shortest-lived of any Nobel literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.
Read more about Albert Camus: Early Years, Literary Career, Revolutionary Union Movement and Europe, Death, Summary of Absurdism, Ideas On The Absurd, Opposition To Totalitarianism, Football
Famous quotes by albert camus:
“I shook off the sweat and the sun. I understood that I had destroyed the balance of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I had been happy. Then I shot four more times at an inert body which the bullets penetrated without appearing so. And it was like four brief knocks that I struck on the door of misfortune.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Oh! Caesonia, I knew men could despair, but I did not know what that word meant. I thought like, everyone else, that it was an ailment of the soul. But no, it is the body that suffers. My skin hurts, my chest, my limbs. I am feeling lightheaded and nauseated. And the most horrible is this taste in my mouth. Neither blood, nor death, nor fever, but all of them at once.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The main thing is that everything become simple, easy enough for a child to understand; that each act be ordered, that good and evil be decided arbitrarily, thus clearly.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“I have no friends, I only have accomplices now. On the other hand, my accomplices are more numerous than my friends: they are the human race.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)