Albert Camus

Confront the absurd and discover the defiant joy of existence with Albert Camus (1913–1960), the French-Algerian author, philosopher, and Nobel Prize laureate whose work stands as one of the great achievements of twentieth-century literature. Born in Algeria and shaped by the blazing Mediterranean sun, poverty, and the violence of history, Camus developed a philosophy of the absurd — the confrontation between humanity’s desperate need for meaning and the universe’s radical silence — and argued that the only honest response is defiant, joyful revolt. His essential works include The Stranger (L’Étranger), his spare, devastating debut novel; The Plague (La Peste), a profound allegory of resistance and solidarity; The Fall; and his philosophical essays The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel. Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.