Albert Camus: A Short Biography

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a French author and philosopher and one of the main exponents of existentialist philosophy.

Camus was born in French occupied Algeria in 1913. His father died fighting at the Battle of Marne in the First World War.

Albert Camus was accepted into the University of Algiers, but had to discontinue full-time schooling due to tuberculosis infection. He continued part-time while working odd jobs. Camus graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1936.


Albert Camus was an active member of the communist party in his younger years, joining in 1934, but falling out with some of the members over the issue of Algerian independence.

Camus married Simone Hie in 1934, but divorced soon after due to her heroin addiction. Albert Camus wrote for a socialist newspaper from 1937-1939, focusing on the condition of rural native populations, a focus that may have cost him his job.  Camus married again in 1940, this time to Francine Faure.

During WWII, Camus joined a French Resistance cell, publishing an underground newspaper, and there meeting fellow writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

After the war, Camus left the newspaper, but continued to lecture on philosophy and against capital punishment. Camus wrote several novels, including The Stranger and The Plague, as well as several collections of philosophical essays. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.

Albert Camus died in a car accident in 1960.  He is buried in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France.


Albert Camu Biography. 18 Dec. 2010. Web. <http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Camus_Albert.html>.