Pagine1913–1960 · Mondovi, French Algeria · also known as Camus
Albert Camus grew up poor in French Algeria, edited a Resistance newspaper during World War II and became one of the defining writers of the 20th century. The Stranger (1942), with its detached narrator Meursault, and the essay The Myth of Sisyphus explore the “absurd”; The Plague (1947) follows a town under quarantine. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, at 44, and died in a car crash three years later.
Begin with The Stranger.
Part of our French Classics reading list — print it, email it to yourself or share it.
Molière · Voltaire · Stendhal · Honoré de Balzac · Victor Hugo · Alexandre Dumas · Gustave Flaubert · Jules Verne · Émile Zola · Guy de Maupassant · Marcel Proust
Albert Camus grew up poor in French Algeria, edited a Resistance newspaper during World War II and became one of the defining writers of the 20th century. The Stranger (1942), with its detached narrator Meursault, and the essay The Myth of Sisyphus explore the “absurd”; The Plague (1947) follows a town under quarantine.
The Stranger is usually considered Albert Camus’s best-known work, followed by The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall.
Most readers start with The Stranger.
Both refer to the same writer.
Albert Camus’s books are still under copyright, so they are not free to download, but many can be borrowed free from your public library or Open Library — we link to them below.