The Stranger

I am a stranger to my own blog, which has lain idle for over a year.  I just might not be a person who has whatever it is that bloggers have to be consistant.  So maybe I'll just be an inconsistant blogger.  Maybe by saying that it will take some pressure off.

Last April we were on a walking tour in the south of France and found ourselves in the village of Lourmarin.  It was here that the French writer/philosopher Albert Camus lived for a short period of his life before his death in 1960 at the age of 46.  Two years before he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

Village of Lourmarin

Camus was born in Algeria to poor white French colonists.  He was raised in the slums of Algiers, but with an intellectual mind he went on to the University of Algiers and left with an equivalent of a Master's Degree.

As a political writer and journalist he joined the Resistance in France during World War II and covered the liberation of Paris for the underground paper, Resistance, which he was the editor of.

Camus is probably best known for his two novels, "The Stranger" (sometimes translated as "The Outsider") and "The Plague", and for his social/political writing.  Like George Orwell he bore warnings against totalitarianism and communism.  It is been many years since I read "The Stranger" but perhaps a reread is in store for me.  I still have the book on my shelves.

  He was in Paris shortly before his death and was due to take the train south for his return to Lourmarin, but decided to travel by car with his publisher.  He was killed in the subsequent car crash.  His train ticket was still in his pocket. While in Lourmarin we visited the gravesite of Camus.