It is hard to say if this sermon had any effect on our townsfolk. M. Othon, the magistrate, assured Dr. Rieux that he had found the preacher's arguments "absolutely irrefutable." But not everybody took so unqualified a view. To some the sermon simply brought home the fact that they had been sentenced, for an unknown crime, to an indeterminate period of punishment. And while a good many people adapted themselves to confinement and carried on their humdrum lives as before, there were others who rebelled and whose one idea now was to break loose from the prison-house.

--from The Plague

Timeline

[Courtesy of Michael Lawrence Chabinyc.]

• 1913 Born in Algeria.
• 1914 Father drafted into WWI and killed in France.
• 1930 Finished early schooling majoring in philosophy with a goal to teach.
• 1934 Married Simone Hié
• 1936 Divorced Simone Hié
• 1935-1938 Ran the Theatre de l'Equipe.
• 1938 Became a journalist.
• 1939 Volunteered for service in WWII, but rejected due to illness.
• 1940 Remarried wrote an essay on the state of Muslims in Algeria causing him to lose his job and move to Paris.
• 1941 Joined the French Resistance against the Nazis and became an editor of Combat an underground newspaper.
• 1941 Writes the novel L'etranger (The Stranger) and meets Jean Paul Sartre.
• 1942 Writes the play Caligula.
• 1942 Writes the essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus).
• 1946 Writes the novel La Peste (The Plague)
• 1947 Writes the play Les Justes (The Just Assassins)
• 1947 Dissatisfied with editorial board of Combat and leaves the paper.
• 1951 Writes the book L'Homme Revolte (The Rebel)
• 1951 Writes the shorts stories in L'Exil et le Royaume (Exile and the Kingdom)
• 1956 Writes the novel La Chute (The Fall)
• 1957 Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• 1960 Jan. 4 dies in an auto accident on the road to Paris.

• The Camus section of Grover Mathewson's "Existentialist Home Page"
• A bibliography
• A short bio in Finnish (.fi)
• A short bio in German (.de)
• A short bio in English
• Katharena Eiermann's Camus homepage

• "Neither Victims Nor Executioners"

• "The Absurd Hero" by Bob Lane
• "De existentialisten: Albert Camus" (.nl; 20K)
• Summary of and commentary on The Plague (at NYU Medical)
• "The Artist in the Midst of the Absurd: Albert Camus and Creative Responsibility"
• A short essay on The Plague
• Article on Le premier homme (.fi)
• "Finding Patterns in Hemingway and Camus: Construction of Meaning and Truth" by Robert D. Lane and Steven M. Lane

• Review of Le premier homme
• Review of Le premier homme (.de)
• Review of Le premier homme
• James Wilson's review of Le premier homme

• Info on the PHILCAMUS Mailing List (via gopher)

• Info on The Stranger
• Two short passages from The Plague
• A photo gallery
• Camus at the Internet Movie Database
• Book Cover for L'étranger

• Grover Mathewson's "Existentialist Home Page"
• "Paper Tiger, Burning Bright" (.uk)
• "The Egoism of Max Stirner" by Sidney Parker
• "References and Allusions to Max Stirner"
• Lyrics to "Killing an Arab" by Robert Smith
• Le Café de Flore
• "Farewells To Justice, God, Politics And The European Way" by David Cook
• Albert Camus: SPIKE Interviews Catherine Camus, Daughter of Albert Camus

• Info on Understanding Albert Camus by David R. Ellison (which is also available direct from University of South Carolina Press)
• Info on Between Hell and Reason: Essays from the Resistance Newspaper Combat, 1944-1947
• Info on Camus by Germaine Brée
• Info on Camus: The Stranger by Patrick McCarthy
• Info on The Sea and Prisons: A Commentary on the Life and Thought of Albert Camus by Roger Quilliot
• Info on Exiles and Strangers: A Reading of Camus's Exile and the Kingdom by English Showalter
• Info on Albert Camus and Christianity by Jean Onimus
• Info on The Unknown Distance: From Consciousness to Conscience, Goethe to Camus by Edward Engelberg
• Info on Exile from the Kingdom: A Political Rereading of Albert Camus