One of the towering figures of 20th-century philosophy, Albert Camus (pronounced al-BEAR cah-MOO) was a French essayist, novelist, playwright, journalist, editor, critic, and political activist who helped reshape popular trends in thought while defiantly walking his own path. He believed that life was meaningless, yet humans always persist in trying to create meaning, an absurd predicament that can be overcome simply by embracing the absurdity.

Born in 1913 to impoverished French colonists in Algeria, Camus showed early promise as a student and graduated from the University of Algiers with a degree in philosophy. At first a communist, Camus’s antiauthoritarian bent got him expelled from the Algerian Communist Party within a few years, and he became known for opposing Soviet Marxism and instead supporting a freeform socialist movement called anarcho-syndicalism. He also developed anticolonial sentiments and called for more rights for Arab populations in French-occupied North Africa.

Camus moved to Paris in 1940 with his second wife, pianist and mathematician Francine Faure. In Paris he edited a newspaper and began work on his first cycle of writings on absurdity, works that include The Myth of Sisyphus and the novel The Stranger. World War II intervened, and he escaped south, living and working sometimes in unoccupied Southern France and sometimes in Algeria.