Albert Camus

Born November 7, 1913 Albert Camus was a French journalist, editorialist, playwright, and director. He was also a novelist and wrote short stories, political essays and was a philosopher. He opposed systematic philosophy and had very little faith in rationalism. Camus' philosophy that life was absurd was symbolized in The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus endlessly pushed his rock up a mountain only to see it roll back down every time it reached the top. His political expression in The Rebel, political essays and fiction gained Camus the reputation as a moralist.

Camus posed the serious philosophical problems: is life worth living or should I kill myself is the essential philosophical question. The primary result according to Camus is action and not comprehension. Camus' philosophy is the absurdity of living and the answers to that question. He seemed to be obsesses with suicide, but only in a philosophical sense.

Camus became the leading intellectual voice of the anti-Communist movement. Camus posed urgent philosophical questions that made men think and wrote a critique of religion and of the Enlightenment. In 1947 Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature for his philosophical writings.

He was a pacifist and fought against capital punishment. In the 1950s Camus worked for human rights and he resigned from his work for UNESCO in 1952 when the UN accepted Spain while under still under the dictatorship of General Franco. Camus founded the French Committee for the European Federation feeling that Europe could only achieve economic progress, peace and democracy if the countries became a federation.

On January 5, 1960 Camus was killed in a car accident in the town of Villeblevin. He is the second youngest recipient of the Noble Prize in literature. Camus was survived by his wife and twin son and daughter.