Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, 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. His works include The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall and The Rebel.
The Plague is a 1947 absurdist novel by Albert Camus. It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator in the midst of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the beginning of the last chapter. The novel presents a snapshot into life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus. Influenced by philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Camus introduces his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd lies in the juxtaposition between the fundamental human need to attribute meaning to life and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response. Camus claims that the realization of the absurd does not justify suicide, and instead requires "revolt". He then outlines several approaches to the absurd life. In the final chapter, Camus compares the absurdity of man's life with the situation of Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology who was condemned to repeat forever the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top. The essay concludes, "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
The Stranger, also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella written by French author Albert Camus. The first of Camus's novels published in his lifetime, the story follows Meursault, an indifferent settler in French Algeria, who, weeks after his mother's funeral, kills an unnamed Arab man in Algiers. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative before and after the killing.
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco instigated a revolution in ideas and techniques of drama, beginning with his "anti play", The Bald Soprano which contributed to the beginnings of what is known as the Theatre of the Absurd, which includes a number of plays that, following the ideas of the philosopher Albert Camus, explore concepts of absurdism and surrealism. He was made a member of the Académie française in 1970, and was awarded the 1970 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 1973 Jerusalem Prize.
Octave Henri Marie Mirbeau was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde with highly transgressive novels that explored violence, abuse and psychological detachment. His work has been translated into 30 languages.
Fantastique is a French term for a literary and cinematic genre and mode that is characterized by the intrusion of supernatural elements into the realistic framework of a story, accompanied by uncertainty about their existence. The concept comes from the French literary and critical tradition, and is distinguished from the word "fantastic", which is associated with the broader term of fantasy in the English literary tradition. According to the literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, the fantastique is distinguished from the marvellous by the hesitation it produces between the supernatural and the natural, the possible and the impossible, and sometimes between the logical and the illogical. The marvellous, on the other hand, appeals to the supernatural in which, once the presuppositions of a magical world have been accepted, things happen in an almost normal and familiar way. The genre emerged in the 18th century and knew a golden age in 19th century Europe, particularly in France and Germany.
"The Guest" is a short story by the French writer Albert Camus. It was first published in 1957 as part of a collection entitled Exile and the Kingdom. The French title "L'Hôte" translates into both "the guest" and "the host" which ties back to the relationship between the main characters of the story. Camus employs this short tale to reflect upon issues raised by the political situation in French North Africa. In particular, he explores the problem of refusing to take sides in the colonial conflict in Algeria, something that mirrors Camus' own non-aligned stance which he had set out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
André Pousse was a noted French actor and, in his youth, also a notable cyclist.
Jean-Pierre Camus was a French bishop, preacher, and author of works of fiction and spirituality.
Caligula is a play written by Albert Camus, begun in 1938 and published for the first time in May 1944 by Éditions Gallimard. It premiered on 26 September 1945 at the Théâtre Hébertot in Paris, starring Gérard Philipe (Caligula), Michel Bouquet and Georges Vitaly and was directed by Paul Œttly. The play was later the subject of numerous revisions. It is part of what Camus called the "Cycle of the Absurd", together with the novel The Stranger (1942) and the essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). A number of critics have reported the piece to be existentialist, though Camus always denied belonging to this philosophy. Its plot revolves around the historical figure of Caligula, a Roman Emperor famed for his cruelty and seemingly insane behavior.
Pascal Pia, born Pierre Durand, was a French writer, journalist, illustrator and scholar. He also used the pseudonyms Pascal Rose, Pascal Fely and others.
Fouad Laroui is a Moroccan economist and writer, born in Oujda, Morocco. After his studies at the Lycée Lyautey (Casablanca), he joined the prestigious École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, where he studied engineering. After working shortly for the Office Cherifien des Phosphates company in Khouribga (Morocco), he moved to the United Kingdom where he spent several years in Cambridge and York. Later he obtained a PhD in economics and moved to Amsterdam where he started his career as a writer. He has published about twenty books between novels, collections of short stories and essays and two collections of poetry in Dutch. He has won several literary prizes, amongst which the Prix Goncourt de la nouvelle, the Prix Jean-Giono and the Grande Médaille de la littérature de l'Académie française.
"The Renegade or a Confused Spirit" is a short story written by French writer Albert Camus. It was first published as the second story in his 1957 collection Exile and the Kingdom.
"The Silent Men" is a short story written in 1957. It is the third short story published in the volume Exile and the Kingdom by Albert Camus.
"The Artist at Work" is a short story by the French writer Albert Camus from Exile and the Kingdom. It has been described as "a satirical commentary on Camus’ personal experience among the Paris intellectual elite of the 1940s and 1950s". The story addresses the question of one's relationship to the community, or more fundamentally the whole issue of existence. The epigraph, a verse from the Book of Jonah, and the name of the main character, "Jonas", set up a link to the prophet Jonah's interaction with people of the Bible.
The Misunderstanding, sometimes published as Cross Purpose, is a play written in 1943 in occupied France by Albert Camus. It focuses on Camus’ idea of The Absurd.
"The Growing Stone" is a short story by the French writer Albert Camus. It is the final short story in the collection Exile and the Kingdom.
Roger Grenier was a French writer, journalist and radio animator. He was Regent of the Collège de ’Pataphysique.
Justin O'Brien was an American biographer, translator of André Gide and Albert Camus and professor of French at Columbia University.
