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The Birth of Albert Camus
Albert Camus was born in Mondovi, French Algeria to Lucien Camus, an agricultural worker and World War 1 soldier and to Catherine Helene Camus, an unskilled laborer of Spanish descent. -
The Death of his Father
Camus' father dies after being drafted to the War in the First Battle of the Marne, sometime around September 6th to the 12th. Camus, being only a year old by then, allegedly never got the chance to meet his father before he passed away. His mother was left alone to sustain him, moving into a 2-bedroom in a working-class district with Camus, his older brother Lucien, his grandmother, and a paralyzed uncle. -
The Start of his Education
By 1918, Camus began his primary school education at Ecole Communale, where many teachers quickly took notice of Camus' potential and intelligence. Among these was Louis Germain, who helped Camus obtain a scholarship to further his education and get him into high school. -
The Continuation of his Education
After receiving his scholarship, Camus was able to continue his education onto Algier Lycee, a High School where he began to hone his intellectual and physical abilities. He joined multiple sports in his high school time, including soccer, swimming, and boxing. -
The End of his Sports Career
After contracting Tuberculosis at the young age of 17, Camus was forced to put an end to his sporting career and a halt onto his education. The disease caused him to lose his scholarship that would've eventually took him into a costless University Education. Once he regained health, Camus focused solely on his studies, moving away from the cramped 2-bedroom apartment to live alone and sustain his University studies through a variety of miscellaneous jobs. -
The Start of his University Education
In 1933, Camus began pursuing further education and enrolled himself at the University of Algiers, where he studied philosophy for 3 years. This is also where his interest in literature and writing began to develop. This is also when he met Jean Grenier, another writer and French philosopher that greatly influenced his opinions and manner of thinking and wrothe with him about the duality of death. -
The Marriage
Simone Hie was the daughter of a rich ophthalmologist and the wife of Camus for a short period of time. -
Period: to
The Communist Party and Camus
During this short time period, Camus became a part of the Algerian Communist Party due to his disagreement with the rising popularity of fascism in Europe. This didn't last long, however, because he became more preoccupied with his other prospects such as a theatre group he founded and as his philosophical ideas further developed, Camus lost interest in the Communist Party. He was eventually expelled from the party due to his belief in Algerian Nationalism. -
The Divorce
Camus' and Hie's marriage ended rather abruptly, only 2 years after their marriage. Hie was, unfortunately, a morphine addict and both her and Camus committed countless infidelities to each other before their eventual separation. -
The Theatre
Alber Camus' passion for theatre began around 1936, and further fortified itself when he founded and created his theater group called Theatre du Travail, where he began works as an actor, director, and playwright. After his expulsion from the communist party, he renamed his group Theatre de l'Equipe. He was known to produce the works of many renowned playwrights within this group, such as Maulrax, Synge, and Dostoyevsky. -
The Completion of his Degree
At this point in his life, Camus was able to obtain an undergraduate and graduate degree in philosophy. -
The "True" Beginning of his Writing Career
In 1937, Camus published his first works, titled L'Envers et l'endroit (The Wrong Side and the Right Side). In this same year, he completed an unpublished during his lifetime book titled A Happy Death. At this time, Camus was only 24 years old. -
The Start of his Journalist Career
Camus became a journalist for Alger-Republicain, a newspaper publisher. -
The Second Publishing
Immediately a year after his first publishing, Camus published to the public Noces (Festivities), a book of philosophical essays dealing with notions of the absurd and of suicide. Absurdism was one of the concepts Camus most strongly examined in his works. Absurdism is the philosophical belief that human beings live in a meaningless and irrational world, and that any attempt to find meaning or purpose in their lives is ultimately doomed to failure. -
The Second Marriage
Camus marries Francine Faure, whom with he later has 2 daughters. Francine was a French Pianist, mathematician, and came from a middle-class of French descence family. -
An Eventful Year
As World Was II was beginning, his second marriage was taking place, a new publication of his essays, and he found a teaching position in Oran, his professional life began to collapse. He was forced to leave Algeria due to posing a threat to national security, moved to Paris, and began working at the Paris-Soir, another newspaper publisher. -
The Return
After losing the Paris-Soir post, Camus return to Algeria where he completes his next work titled The Myth of Sisyphus. In this work he projects his ideas of Nihilism and portrays the main character as the "ideal absurd hero" who's punishment is representative of the human condition doomed to failure. -
The Stranger
Another fit of tuberculosis brings Camus back to France. He also joins a resistance group that centers on underground journalism and wrote for an underground newspaper titled Combat. In this same year, what is perhaps known as his most popular work, The Stranger, was written and published. The Stranger centers on a French Algerian, who kills an Arab man and faces a trial. The novel explores the themes of absurdity, alienation, and the meaninglessness of life. -
The First Play Staged
Le Malentendu (Cross-Purpose) was a play written in the previous year by Camus. It was first performed and staged in the year 1944. The play centers once more on Camus' philosophical idea of The Absurd. -
The Allied Invasion of North Africa
Having returned to France due to his illness, he was forced to remain there for longer due to the Allied Invasion of North Africa that led to him and his wife being separated until the liberation of 1944. -
The Contact of Philosophists
Around the time of the occurrence of the liberation, Camus had the chance of contacting multiple of those philosophical moralists that saw eye to eye with his own ideals, such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. He also met Maria Casares, who became his affair lover. -
The Second Play Staged
Caligula, a play that Camus began back in 1938 and published in 1944 was staged and played in that same year. The play was published together with The Misunderstanding and centers on superior suicide, following a man that is unfaithful to man and himself ultimately agrees with the ending of his life given that his salvation is impossible, and he is doomed for failure in his given human condition. -
The Birth of the Twins
Camus' two twin children are born, one boy one girl, with their mother being his wife, Francine Fauer. Their names were Catherine and Jean, born in Algeria under difficult circumstances. -
The Plague
In this year, Camus left Combat, the newspaper publisher he had been working for for 3 years. Following his job departure, he went on to publish another of his best known novels, The Plague. The novel is considered to be an existentialist classic despite Camus' constant disproval to the label of existentialism. -
The Disease Strikes Again
In 1950, his disease once more attacked Camus and forced him to settle for a recovery or convalescence at Grasse, breaking off the ongoing affair with French Actress Maria Casares. -
The Publishing of The Rebel
In 1951, Camus published another essay work titled L'Homme Revolte (The Rebel), a work that displayed the change Camus made from centering on The Absurd to the metaphysical idea of rebellion. Having been previously involved in the communist party, Camus remained politically involved, such shown through his beliefs and ideologies. In The Rebel, Camus explores the idea of political independence and emphasizes the different between a revolution and revolt, from which he encourages the latter. -
The Publishing of Summer
Following a period of depression that hindered his ability to write, Camus published Summer, another work of essays. During this time, the theme of politics, war, rebellion, and revolution remained prominent in Camus' works, including Summer. -
The Fall
In 1956, Camus publishes another of his greatly influential books titled La Chute (The Fall). The Fall is the last of Albert Camus' published in life novels. The philosophical novel is often acclaimed as misunderstood and sophisticated yet beautiful, dealing with topics such as innocence, punishment, and imprisonment as well as existentialism. -
The Nobel Prize for Literature
In 1957, following a year of illness, political affairs, separations, and depression, Camus' previous works regained light before the public and Camus was honored the Nobel Prize in Literature of 1957 at just 44 years old. -
The Continuation of his Theatrical Career
Following his greatest achievement and the republishing of several of his works, Camus remained prominent in his interest and career for theatre. He directed another of Dostoevsky's works titled The Possessed, and continued writing full time on another novel titled The First Man. This was to be his final yet unfinished novel. -
The Death of Albert Camus
On January 4th, 1960, Camus was killed in a car accident, in Villeblin France. The writer, playwright, philosopher, and influential moralist was only 46 years old. His career coming to a sudden, unexpected end, for he was set to become the director of a prominent theatre in Paris in 1960, the same year of his death. -
References
~https://www.gradesaver.com/author/albert-camus/
~https://www.notablebiographies.com/Ca-Ch/Camus-
Albert.html
~https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albert-Camus
~https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/albert-camus
~https://www.legacy.com/news/culture-and-history/albert-
camus-51-facts/
~https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/