Albert Camus: 60 Years Since His Death, a Rebel Against the Absurd

Albert Camus died 60 years ago in Villeblevin, France, at age 46. The existentialist writer and Nobel laureate (1957) is remembered as a rebel against absurdity, whose works like 'The Stranger' and 'The Plague' critique indifference and moral decay. Camus was a nonconformist communist, oscillating between Trotskyism and anarchism, often compared to Italian writer Giovannino Guareschi. His philosophy emphasizes individual revolt and dignity, akin to artists Hans Hartung, Edmund Kalb, and Georg Baselitz. The article draws parallels between Camus's themes and the alienation depicted by Neue Sachlichkeit painters like George Grosz, as well as the masks of Pirandello and the harlequinades of Gino Severini. Camus's 'The Plague' is interpreted as a metaphor for the pestilence of cowardice, corruption, and indifference in modern society, not just in Oran but in the halls of power in Rome. His fight is nonviolent, relying on the strength of the individual, as expressed in his 'Discours de Suède' for the Nobel ceremony. The article contrasts Camus's stark black-and-white writing with the colorful universe of Lautréamont, and compares his photographic quality to Astrid Kirchherr's work. Camus died at the dawn of the 1960s, a decade of mass culture and spectacle.