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Article: ALBERT CAMUS: A LIFE, by Olivier Todd, translated from the French by Benjamin Ivry; Knopf (434 pages, $30).(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- December 31, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For someone whose very name has become associated with the term ``absurd,'' Albert Camus led a surprisingly charmed life.
Born in 1913 in Mondovi, a town in Algeria, he grew up in extreme poverty. His father, a cellarman for a winery, was killed at the battle of the Marne when Camus wasn't yet a year old. His mother, who was illiterate and deaf, worked as a domestic, and it was his strong-willed maternal grandmother who kept the family together.
From that inauspicious beginning, Camus went on to become a world-famous author by the time he was in his 30s and the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature at age 43. (He immediately telegraphed his ...