The plague

Albert Camus (1913-1960) was born in Algeria, which was then a French colonial possession. His father was killed in battle in World War I a year after Albert’s birth, leaving his family in poverty. Camus worked his way through the university of Algiers by doing odd jobs, but dropped out after a severe bout of tuberculosis. He then turned to journalism, writing for an anti-colonial newspaper in Algeria, and briefly turned to communism, with which he quickly became disillusioned, before moving to France. During World War II, he served as part of the French Resistance against the Nazi occupation forces, editing the underground newspaper Combat.