Literature · Philosophy · Media · 1913–1960
Born: 7 November 1913 · Died: 4 January 1960 · Age: 46
French-Algerian writer of The Stranger and The Plague who explored the absurd and won the Nobel Prize in Literature at 44
Did you know?He was a passionate football player and served as a goalkeeper for his university team before illness ended his career.
Camus asked one of philosophy's most direct questions: if life has no built-in meaning, how should we live? His answer was not despair but rebellion, choosing to live fully and honestly despite the absurdity of existence. In The Myth of Sisyphus he argued that we must imagine Sisyphus, endlessly pushing his boulder uphill, as happy. Born into poverty in French Algeria, he worked as a journalist and edited a Resistance newspaper during the Nazi occupation of France. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature at just 44 and died in a car crash only three years later.
Albert Camus ( kam-OO; French:; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, writer, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history, and the first laureate in literature born in Africa.
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“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Profile
French writer and philosopher, born 1913
Albert Camus was born in Dréan on 7 November 1913.
He grew up poor in Algiers.
He wrote The Stranger and The Plague.
He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.
Career highlights
Did you know?He played as a goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire d'Alger.
Questions people ask
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