All Camus works. Albert Camus: Life is the creation of the soul

Albert Camus; France Paris; 11/07/1913 - 01/04/1960

Albert Camus is one of the most famous French writers and philosophers of the 20th century. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, his works were translated into many languages ​​of the world, and in the USSR he received the nickname "Conscience of the West." Although in the mature period of his work he in every possible way opposed the totalitarian regime of the USSR.

Biography of Albert Camus

Albert Camus was born in the town of Drean in the north-east of Algeria. With the outbreak of the First World War, Albert's father was drafted into the army and soon died. By this time, the boy was not even one year old. Camus' illiterate and semi-deaf mother decides to move to the port city of Bellecour, where Albert's grandmother lived. The family lived quite poorly, but this did not prevent them from sending Albert to study at school at the age of five. A talented and promising boy was almost immediately noticed by one of the teachers - Louis Germain. It was he who, in 1923, after graduating from school, insisted on further training for Albert and knocked out a scholarship for him.

At the Lyceum, Albert Camus gets acquainted with French literature and is fond of football. But when the boy turned 17, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He spent two months in sanatoriums and recovered from his illness, but the consequences of the illness reminded of themselves for the rest of his life. In 1932, the future writer entered the University of Algiers. Here he studies philosophy, meets, meets his first love - Simone Iye, whom he divorced five years later. During his studies, he had to earn money as a teacher, salesman and assistant at the institute. At the same time, work began on Camus's first book, The Happy Death.

After graduating from university, Albert Camus worked as an editor in various publications, wrote the book "Marriage" and the play "Caligula". In 1940, together with his future wife, Francis Faure moved to France. Here he works as a technical editor at Paris-Soir, and also becomes close to the left underground organization Komba. During World War II, he was found unfit for service and focused on his literary activities. But most of the books by Albert Camus, written at that time, came out after the end of the war. So in 1947 one of the most famous works of Camus "The Plague" was published. At the same time, a departure from leftist ideas began, which was finally embodied in the book "The Rebellious Man", which was published in 1951. Around the same time, Albert became more and more interested in theater and wrote a number of plays.

In 1957, Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He devotes it to his school teacher Louis Germain, who many years ago insisted on continuing the boy's education. Albert Camus died in January 1960 in a car accident. He, along with a friend and his family, traveled from Provence to Paris. As a result of an accident, they flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree. Albert Camus died on the spot.

Books by Albert Camus on the Top Books website

Albert Camus's books are still popular to read now. This is largely due to the presence of his works in the curriculum. But even without this, Camus's works are quite popular and are likely to get into our rating more than once. At the same time, several novels of the writer can be presented in the rating at once.

Albert Camus list of books

1. Marriage feast
2. Rebel man
3. Wind in Dzhemila
4. Return to Tipasa
5. Revolt in Asturias
6. Exile and kingdom
7. Wrong side and face
8. Caligula
9. Misunderstanding
10. State of siege
11. The fall
12. First man

French writer, essayist and playwright Albert Camus was the literary representative of his generation. The obsession with philosophical problems of the meaning of life and the search for true values ​​provided the writer with a cult status among readers and earned the Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 44.

Childhood and youth

Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in Mondovi, Algeria, then part of France. His French father was killed during the First World War when Albert was one year old. The boy's mother, of Spanish descent, was able to provide a small income and housing in a poor area of ​​Algeria through unskilled labor.

Albert's childhood was poor and sunny. Living in Algeria made Camus feel rich because of the temperate climate. According to Camus, he "lived in poverty, but also in sensual rapture." His Spanish heritage has given him a sense of self-worth in poverty and a passion for honor. Camus began writing at an early age.

At the Algerian University, he brilliantly studied philosophy - the value and meaning of life, focusing on the comparison of Hellenism and Christianity. While still a student, the guy founded a theater, at the same time directed and played in performances. At the age of 17, Albert fell ill with tuberculosis, which did not allow him to engage in sports, military and teaching activities. Camus worked in various positions before becoming a journalist in 1938.

His first published works were The Wrong Side and the Face in 1937 and The Wedding Feast in 1939, a collection of essays on the meaning of life and its joys, as well as meaninglessness. Albert Camus's writing style marked a break with the traditional bourgeois novel. He was less interested in psychological analysis than in philosophical problems.

Camus developed an idea of ​​absurdism that provided the theme for much of his early work. The absurd is the gap between a person's pursuit of happiness and a world that he can understand rationally, and the real world, which is confused and irrational. The second stage of Camus's thought arose from the first: a person must not only accept the absurd universe, but also "rebel" against it. This uprising is not political, but in the name of traditional values.

Books

Camus's first novel, The Outsider, published in 1942, dealt with the negative aspect of man. The book tells the story of a young clerk named Meursault, who is the storyteller and protagonist. Meursault is alien to all the expected human emotions, he is a "sleepwalker" in life. The crisis of the novel unfolds on the beach when the hero, involved in a quarrel through no fault of his own, shoots an Arab.

The second part of the novel is devoted to his trial for murder and the sentence to death, which he understands about the same as why he killed an Arab. Meursault is completely honest in describing his feelings, and it is this honesty that makes him a "stranger" in the world and secures a guilty verdict. The general situation symbolizes the absurd nature of life, and this effect is enhanced by the deliberately flat and colorless style of the book.

Camus returned to Algeria in 1941 and finished his next book, The Myth of Sisyphus, also published in 1942. This is a philosophical essay on the nature of the meaninglessness of life. The mythical character Sisyphus, sentenced to eternity, lifts a heavy stone uphill only for it to roll down again. Sisyphus becomes a symbol of humanity and, in his constant efforts, achieves a certain sad victory.

Returning to France in 1942, Camus joined the Resistance group and was engaged in underground journalism until Liberation in 1944, when he became editor of the Boy newspaper for 3 years. Also during this period, his first two plays were staged: "Misunderstanding" in 1944 and "Caligula" in 1945.

The main role in the first play was played by the actress Maria Cazares. Working with Camus turned into a deeper relationship lasting 3 years. Maria remained on friendly terms with Albert until his death. The main theme of the plays was the meaninglessness of life and the finality of death. It was in drama that Camus felt most successful.

In 1947, Albert published his second novel, The Plague. This time, Camus focused on the positive side of the person. In describing the fictional attack of the bubonic plague in the Algerian city of Oran, he re-examined the theme of absurdism, expressed by the senseless and completely undeserved suffering and death caused by the plague.

The narrator, Dr. Rieux, explained his ideal of "honesty" - a person who retains the strength of character and tries his best, even if unsuccessfully, to fight against an outbreak.

At one level, the novel can be seen as a fictional representation of the German occupation in France. "The Plague" is most widely known among readers as a symbol of the struggle against evil and suffering - the main moral problems of mankind.

Camus' next important book was "The Rebel Man". The collection includes 3 important philosophical works of the writer, without which it is difficult to fully understand his concept of existentialism. In his work, he asks questions: what is freedom and truth, what is the existence of a truly free person. Life according to Camus is a riot. And it's worth organizing an uprising in order to truly live.

Personal life

On June 16, 1934, Camus married Simone Hee, who had previously been engaged to a friend of the writer, Max-Paul Fouche. However, the happy personal life of the newlyweds did not last long - the couple broke up by July 1936, and the divorce was completed in September 1940.

On December 3, 1940, Camus married Francine Faure, a pianist and mathematics teacher, whom he met in 1937. Although Albert loved his wife, he did not believe in the institution of marriage. Despite this, the couple had twin daughters, Catherine and Jean, born on September 5, 1945.

Death

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his writings. In the same year, Albert began working on the fourth important novel, and was also going to become the director of a large Parisian theater.

On January 4, 1960, he died in a car accident in the small town of Vilbleven. The writer was 46 years old. While many have speculated that the cause of the writer's death was a Soviet-organized accident, there is no evidence of this. Camus was survived by his wife and children.

Two of his works were published posthumously: Happy Death, written in the late 1930s, and published in 1971, and The First Man (1994), which Camus wrote at the time of his death. The death of the writer was a tragic loss for literature, since he still had to write works at a more mature and conscious age and expand his creative biography.

After the death of Albert Camus, many world directors took up the works of the Frenchman to film them. There have already been released 6 films based on the books of the philosopher, and one fictional biography, which contains original quotes from the writer and shows his real photos.

Quotes

"It is common for every generation to consider itself called upon to remake the world."

"I don't want to be a genius, I have enough of the problems that I face trying to be just a human being."

"The realization that we are going to die turns our life into a joke."

"Travel as the greatest and most serious science helps us to rediscover ourselves"

Bibliography

• 1937 - "The Wrong Side and the Face"
• 1942 - The Outsider
• 1942 - "The Myth of Sisyphus"
• 1947 - The Plague
• 1951 - "The Rebel Man"
• 1956 - The Fall
• 1957 - Hospitality
• 1971 - Happy Death
• 1978 - Travel Diary
• 1994 - "The First Man"

Camus, Albert (1913-1960). Born November 7, 1913 in the Algerian village of Mondovi, 24 km south of the city of Bon (now Annaba), in the family of an agricultural worker. Father, Alsatian by birth, died in the First World War. His mother, a Spanish woman, moved with her two sons to the city of Algeria, where Camus lived until 1939. In 1930, graduating from the Lyceum, he fell ill with tuberculosis, from the consequences of which he suffered all his life. Becoming a student at the University of Algiers, he studied philosophy, was interrupted by odd jobs.

Concern about social problems led him to the Communist Party, but after a year he left it. He organized an amateur theater, from 1938 he took up journalism. Released in 1939 from military conscription for health reasons, in 1942 he joined the underground resistance organization "Komba"; edited her illegal newspaper of the same name. Leaving his job at Komba in 1947, he wrote journalistic articles for the press, which were subsequently collected in three books under the general title Topical Notes (Actuelles, 1950, 1953, 1958).

Books (10)

Wrong side and face. Essays

This book presents the philosophical legacy of the Nobel laureate Albert Camus.

Camus's philosophy, like any good literature, is impossible to retell. You can talk to her, agreeing and objecting, but putting on the line not abstract arguments, but the experience of your own "existence", the metaphysical reconciliation of your fate, in which a wise and deep interlocutor will appear.

Caligula

Caligula. The play, which has become a kind of creative manifesto of French existentialist literature - and still has not left the stages of the whole world. A play in which, in the words of Jean Paul Sartre, "freedom becomes pain, and pain liberates."

Years and decades have passed - however, both literary critics and readers are still trying - each in its own way! - to comprehend the essence of the tragedy of the insane young emperor, who dared to look into the abyss of eternity ...

The myth of Sisyphus

According to Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most circumspect of mortals. True, according to another source, he traded with robbery. I see no contradiction here. There are different opinions about how he became the eternal worker of hell. He was reproached primarily for his frivolous attitude towards the gods. He divulged their secrets. Aegipa, daughter of Ason, was abducted by Jupiter. The father was surprised at this disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, knowing about the abduction, offered Asop help, on condition that Asop would give water to the citadel of Corinth. He preferred the blessing of earthly waters to heavenly lightning. The punishment for this was hellish torment. Homer also says that Sisyphus has shackled Death.

The fall

Be that as it may, but after a long study of myself, I have established a deep duality of human nature.

Having rummaged in my memory, I realized then that modesty helped me to shine, humility - to win, and nobility - to oppress. I waged the war by peaceful means and, showing disinterestedness, I achieved everything I wanted. For example, I never complained that they did not congratulate me on my birthday, they forgot this significant date; acquaintances were surprised at my modesty and almost admired her.

Outsider

A kind of creative manifesto, embodying the image of the search for absolute freedom. The "outsider" denies the narrowness of the moral norms of modern bourgeois culture.

The story is written in an unusual style - short phrases in the past tense. The author's cold style later had a huge impact on European authors of the second half of the 20th century.

The story reveals the story of a man who committed a murder, unrepentant, refused defense in court and was sentenced to death.

The first phrase of the book became famous - “My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know for sure. " A work full of existence is striking, which brought Camus world fame.

French writer and thinker, Nobel laureate (1957), one of the brightest representatives of existentialist literature. In his artistic and philosophical work, he developed the existential categories of "existence", "absurdity", "rebellion", "freedom", "moral choice", "extreme situation", and also developed the traditions of modernist literature. Depicting a person in a "world without God", Camus consistently considered the positions of "tragic humanism". In addition to fictional prose, the author's creative legacy includes drama, philosophical essays, literary critical articles, and publicistic speeches.

He was born on November 7, 1913 in Algeria, the son of a rural worker who died from a serious wound received at the front in the First World War. Camus studied first at a communal school, then at the Algiers Lyceum, and then at the University of Algiers. He was interested in literature and philosophy, and devoted his thesis to philosophy.

In 1935 he created the amateur Theater of Labor, where he was an actor, director and playwright.

In 1936 he joined the Communist Party, from which he was expelled already in 1937. In the same 37th he published the first collection of essays "The Wrong Side and the Face".

In 1938, the first novel, Happy Death, was written.

In 1940 he moved to Paris, but because of the German advance, he lived and taught for some time in Oran, where he completed the story "The Stranger", which attracted the attention of writers.

In 1941 he wrote the essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", which was considered a programmatic existentialist work, as well as the drama "Caligula".

In 1943 he settled in Paris, where he joined the resistance movement, collaborated with the illegal newspaper Comba, which he headed after the resistance, which threw the occupiers out of the city.

The second half of the 40s - the first half of the 50s - a period of creative development: the novel The Plague (1947) appeared, which brought the author world fame, the plays The State of Siege (1948), The Righteous (1950), the essay Rebel man ”(1951), the story“ The Fall ”(1956), the landmark collection“ Exile and the Kingdom ”(1957), the essay“ Timely Reflections ”(1950-1958), etc. The last years of his life were marked by a creative decline.

The work of Albert Camus is an example of the fruitful union of the talents of a writer and a philosopher. For the formation of the artistic consciousness of this creator, acquaintance with the works of F. Nietzsche, A. Schopenhauer, L. Shestov, S. Kierkegaard, as well as with ancient culture and French literature, was of great importance. One of the most important factors in the formation of his existentialist worldview was the early experience of discovering the proximity of death (even in his student years, Camus fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis). As a thinker, he belongs to the atheistic branch of existentialism.

Pathos, denial of the values ​​of bourgeois civilization, concentration on the ideas of the absurdity of life and rebellion, characteristic of A. Camus's work, were the reason for his rapprochement with the pro-communist circle of the French intelligentsia, and in particular with the ideologist of "left" existentialism J.P. Sartre. However, already in the post-war years, the writer broke up with his former associates and comrades, because he did not harbor illusions about the “communist paradise” in the former USSR and wanted to reconsider his relationship with “left” existentialism.

While still a novice writer, A. Camus drew up a plan for the future creative path, which was to combine three facets of his talent and, accordingly, three areas of his interests - literature, philosophy and theater. There were such stages - "absurd", "rebellion", "love". The writer consistently implemented his plan, alas, at the third stage his career was cut short by death.

On January 4, 1960, Paris was shocked by terrible news. The car in which the famous writer Albert Camus was traveling with the family of his friend Michel Gallimard, returning from Provence, flew off the road and crashed into a plane tree not far from the town of Vilbleuvin, a hundred kilometers from Paris. Camus died instantly. Gallimard, who was driving, died in the hospital two days later, his wife and daughter survived. The famous writer, the youngest winner of the 1957 Nobel Prize, died on the spot, he was only 46 years old.

"Conscience of the West" - Albert Camus

Albert Camus is a French writer, journalist, essayist, philosopher, and a member of the French Resistance movement. One of the key figures in world literature. He, along with Sartre, stood at the origins of existentialism. But later he left him, becoming the successor of the tradition of philosophical prose. Camus is one of the most ardent humanists in literary history. He was called "the conscience of the West." His ethics prohibits murder, even if it is committed in the name of a great idea, Camus rejects those who pretend to be Prometheus and are ready to sacrifice others for the sake of building a bright future.

After the accident in Paris, rumors spread that it was not just an accident, but a contract murder. During his short life, Camus made many enemies. He led a movement to resist colonialism. But he was against the terror unleashed in his homeland against the colonialists. Neither the right-wing French, who defended the colonial rule of France in Algeria, nor the terrorists who wanted to destroy the colonialists, did not tolerate him. He wanted to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Camus was born in Algeria on November 7, 1913 in a poor family of agricultural workers. My father was called to the front during the First World War, and two weeks later he was killed. An illiterate, half-deaf mother moved with her children to a poor district.

In 1923, her son graduated from elementary school and had to go to work to help his mother feed his family. But the teacher persuaded the mother to send the boy to the lyceum. The teacher said that someday her son would bring glory to the family. “He has an undeniable talent, you will be proud of him,” he kept repeating, and his mother agreed to send her son to the Lyceum, where he showed his best side. Then his penchant for football was revealed, he showed great promise as an athlete.

After the lyceum, Albert entered the philosophy department of the University of Algiers. Played soccer. He was promised a brilliant sports future. But at the age of 17, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and had to say goodbye to football. The future was hazy, but it only belonged to him. “I was somewhere halfway between the sun and poverty. Poverty prevented me from believing that all is well in history. And the sun taught me that history is not everything. Change my life - yes, but not the world in which I will create. "

Tuition had to be paid for and Albert did not hesitate to do any work: a private teacher, a salesman of spare parts, an assistant at a meteorological institute. He was popular with women. But Simone - his first wife - turned out to be a morphine addict. The marriage broke up.

In 1935, Camus became interested in Marxism and joined the Communist Party of Algeria. He dreamed of freeing a man of labor. However, he quickly discovered that the Communist Party's policy was opportunistic and tied to Moscow. In 1937 he left the party. Together with her theater troupe, Theater of Labor, which was associated with communist cells, Camus traveled all over Algeria. He was both a stage director and an actor. He wrote for the theater. I planned to study further. But the aggravated tuberculosis did not allow this. But he did not interfere with his writing. Camus became a journalist for several newspapers. The main theme is the dire situation of the indigenous population of Algeria. "I did not study freedom according to Marx," he writes in his notebooks, "poverty taught me to do it."

One after another, his books "The Wrong Side and the Face", "The Marriage", and the play "Caligula" began to appear.
In the spring of 1940, Camus moved to France. He headed the Paris Soir newspaper. He married his classmate Francine Faure. He so needed a quiet home and the care of a loving woman. Quiet family happiness did not last long. On June 25, 1940, France surrendered. Camus was fired from his post as editor. Left for evacuation. But two years later he returned to Paris and was actively involved in the activities of the French resistance. He became a member of the underground organization Komba and met the actress Maria Casarez, for whom he developed a deep and passionate love. It was a dangerous and difficult time. He wrote, and before his eyes the defeat of Paris by the brown plague was taking place.

A cocktail of love and risk - that's what Camus's life is like at this time. The idyll of love with Marie lasted for a year. And in 1944, Francine returned to Paris to her husband. Marie was shocked, it turns out that her lover is married. She gave Camus a week to think about it, so that he would make the final choice between her and Francine. It was unbearable. Albert was torn between love and duty. In essence, he did not marry Francine for love, but because of his illness. He succumbed to weakness. But he was grateful to her for her care and warmth. For the fact that she was there in difficult moments of life. Now his wife needed his protection. She was pregnant. He couldn't leave her. The decision was made by Maria. Upon learning about the twins, she herself left Albert.

Camus suffered greatly. I wrote long letters to her. Inside him love and duty fought for life and death. This personal drama was set against the backdrop of events in Paris. At the end of the war, it was time for reckoning those who supported the Nazis. A wave of lynching and reprisals began. Camus was categorically against terror and revenge, he was convinced that one should not take the side of the guillotine. The witch hunt, for those who collaborated with the Nazis, knocked him out of his creative rut. Every article about him in the newspapers is indignation: "Who are you with, mister writer?"

And he is the only French writer who opposed the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Camus was convinced that the bombing was not a final victory, it was the beginning of a new, more exhausting war. And it needs to be stopped.

In 1948, three years after parting, Albert once saw Marie on the street. And it all started all over again. There was nothing they could do about it. It was a union made in heaven. Happiness, delightful and all-consuming, covered them, and nothing could separate them anymore. Now he is a famous writer. He is no longer perceived as the lover of a famous actress. Once he said: "Not to be loved is just a failure, not to love is a misfortune." He was fortunate enough to experience both at the same time. And yet he was happy because he loved.

He did not even think of leaving Francine. But his wife annoyed him. Creativity saved him from family troubles and a double life. "Free is the one who can not lie," wrote Camus. In his work, he was extremely honest with the reader and himself.

During this time he wrote his famous work "The Rebellious Man" - an essay about rebellion and man. In it, Camus explored the anatomy of rebellion and came to shocking conclusions. Rebellion against the absurd is natural, normal. But revolution is violence that leads to tyranny. It is aimed at suppressing human rebellion against the absurd. This means that the revolution is unacceptable. So Camus debunked the Marxist idea. And he completely parted with the existentialists. He became a humanist.“I only hate executioners,” he wrote. - The rest of the people are different. They often act out of ignorance. They do not know what they are doing, therefore they most often do evil. But they are not executioners. " It was an attempt to enlighten others.

"The rebellious man" quarreled Camus with Sartre, although before that they had been inseparable for 10 years. Thanks to this friendship, the work of Camus is still mistakenly reckoned among the philosophy of existentialism. "I have too few points of contact with the fashionable doctrine of existentialism, the conclusions of which are false." - wrote Camus.

Back in 1945, drunk with victory, he and Sartre fiercely argued whether it was possible to give up their inner feelings for the common good. Sartre argued: "It's impossible to make a revolution without getting your hands dirty." Camus believed that "there is no accident in the choice of what can dishonor you"... In Man in Rebellion, Camus encroached on something sacred. He criticized the ideology of Marxism.

He analyzes in this work where the rebellion leads. Yes, it can lead to liberation. But a side effect is that there are Man-gods, Prometheus, who then drive people into concentration camps. The scandal was unthinkable. Camus was scolded by both the left and the right. A frantic persecution of the writer began. "L'Humanite" declared Camus a "warmonger". Sartre published the play The Devil and the Lord God, which ended with the words: "The kingdom of man begins, and in it I will be an executioner and a butcher"... Sartre finally went over to the side of the executioner. That is, he directly called himself the one whom Camus hated. Further relationships were impossible.

In the fall of 1957, Albert Camus was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, the wording was: "for his enormous contribution to literature, highlighting the importance of human conscience." It was like a bolt from the blue. Camus was at a loss. His "Rebellious Man" is not scolded unless he is lazy, he is poisoned and ridiculed. And here is a prestigious award. Camus is confused.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris Pasternak, Samuel Beckett, André Malraux are nominated. "Malraux will get the prize," Camus repeats like a spell. But he had to go to Stockholm - the youngest of the nominees. He considered himself unworthy of such recognition. At some point, I even wanted to refuse the prize, to send the Nobel speech by mail. Friends convinced him to read it in person.

« Each generation is convinced that its purpose is to remake the world. Mine already knows that he cannot change this world. But his task is even greater. It is to keep this world from perishing. I am too attached to the gallery of our time not to row with the others, even if I’m sure the galley stinks of herring and has too many overseers and is on the wrong course.". The performance was greeted with a standing ovation.

One Algerian student asked a writer, “You have written so many books but have not done anything for your home country? Will Algeria be free? " Camus replied: “I stand for justice. But I am against terror and, if I have a chance, I will not defend Algeria, but my mother. "

In the streets of his hometown, indeed, shots sounded and terrorist attacks took place, the victims of which were innocent people, and his mother could have become.

Apart from a small house in Provence, the first home of his own, Camus's award did not bring any other joy. As soon as it became known that he had received the prestigious award, the newspapers were full of mocking headlines. “What are such outstanding ideas? His creations lack depth and imagination. The Nobel Committee encourages talent that has written out! " The bullying began. “Look who was awarded the Nobel Prize? His own peace and mother's sufferings are dearer to him than the whole country. " The Algerian rebels were seething with indignation. "He betrayed the interests of his native people." The Soviet press reacted most negatively. “It is quite obvious,” wrote Pravda, “that he received the prize for political reasons for his attacks on the USSR. But once he was a member of the Communist Party. "
Not surprisingly, after the death of Camus, many began to talk that the accident was set up by KGB agents.

Or maybe Camus decided to commit suicide himself? Family and love drama, a break with Sartre, harassment in the press. “There is always something in a person that rejects love, that part of his being that wants to die. My whole life is a story of a delayed suicide " - he wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus. But people who knew him well said that he was far from committing suicide and would not risk the lives of close friends who were sitting in the same car with him.

What happened on the way from Provence to Paris in 1960? Most likely an accident. “My most cherished desire is a quiet death, which would not make people dear to me worry too much,” he wrote shortly before his death. But a quiet death did not work. The manuscript of the autobiographical novel "The First Man" was found in the writer's travel bag. The sketches retained the author's remark "The book must be unfinished." His last book remained unfinished, as did his family life and love, as did his whole life, which ended so suddenly. But, apparently, his soul was ready for this.

“If the soul exists, it would be wrong to think that it is given to us already created. It is created on earth throughout life. Life itself is nothing more than this long and painful birth. When the creation of the soul, to which a person owes himself and suffering, is completed, death comes ” (A. Camus. The myth of Sisyphus).