Albert Camus: The Twentieth Century’s Prophetic Rebel

In 1957, when Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Academy explained their decision-making this way: “for [Camus’] important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times.” Camus, a former communist and war-weary journalist, might have seemed an unorthodox choice for the conservative institution, but the wisdom of that decision feels indisputable now. In the years since Camus’ Nobel Prize selection, many worthy candidates have been awarded the high prize, but Camus’ reputation remains untouched by time. His writings have not lost their sharpness, and despite their age, his philosophical prose still baffles and comforts in the same way it did a century ago. Camus’ legacy as a writer, definitively shaped by World War II, is akin to some of his intellectual peers, such as Günter Grass or Svetlana Alexievich, and despite the geographical differences, their literary voices have a similar pitch. Out of his peers, Camus is the most deserving of the Nobel Prize because of his rich literary contributions, artistic clarity, and enduring philosophical insights.

The Nobel Prize is awarded each year to the person who has produced “the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction” (Alfred Nobel’s will). This award is a global recognition of a writer’s contribution to literature and is frequently a nod to the whole of their career. Essayist Jeffrey Meyers even alleges that some writers achieve this honor long after their careers have reached their peak, “The Academy, instinctively afraid of making premature judgments, often award[s] the prize to writers long after their best work had been completed. They gave it to William Faulkner and to Hemingway, who’d done their finest writing in the 1920s and 1930s” (221). Cynical or not, the risk-averse institution typically prefers to award consensus nominees, and this prize is inclusive of their whole body of work, not just a runaway best-seller. In some ways, this measured approach ensures that a writer is worth the merit of such a historic commendation. The Nobel Prize is not a participation trophy: a person worthy to be included in the pantheon of other great writers must have a career worth commemorating. For someone awarded the prize, their body of work must reach the heights of idealism that Alfred Nobel demanded, and this should be self-evident to those assessing the candidate. One book, essay, or speech is not enough to warrant the crown: a candidate’s full body of work should be worth celebrating.

Camus is the most deserving of the honor because of the consistent brilliance of his literary work. Beyond only writing The Plague, a compelling parable of the Nazi invasion of France, Camus was responsible for other philosophical triumphs such as The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Fall. These stories are remarkable in that they create an ideal of how to live amid great suffering through recognition of the absurd. Essayist Georges Leroux describes it this way: “Even if Camus does not show how accepting the thesis of absurdity leads to a better morality, he nevertheless still offers its legitimacy. Therein lies his greatness” (211). Camus, the esteemed prophet of absurdist expression, provides one consistent thesis in his works that offers a solution to the problem of nihilism in the human heart: the whole of Camus’ bibliography is an exploration of a novel type of meaning-making. The “legitimacy” of his absurdist worldview, carefully demonstrated across his career, is why Camus is honored by the Academy. Despite the differences in each work, the cohesion of his thesis never alters. Of course, Grass and Alexievich are not intellectual slouches in this regard. The works of Grass and Alexievich are worth the high praise they have received, but neither has the consistent literary voice that Camus possesses. Their respective works have a self-evident value, but it would be hard to argue that Grass or Alexievich have accomplished this feat as consistently as Camus did throughout his career. In the case of Camus, one could successfully argue for his recognition by the Academy by pointing to any of his widely-read writings, and there are few misfires among that list to distract from his legacy as a laureate.

One such litmus test for analyzing the worthiness of a potential Nobel laureate is the ability to trace the inscrutable qualities of the human condition. All good writers should seek to understand (and make known) an aspect of the human experience, such as how one stays “idealistic” in a world beset by such immense suffering. The Academy rightly awards those writers who seek to contextualize the world in terms that their audience finds compelling. Verbosity, cleverness, and wit appeal to academics, but sincerity is the currency of the soul. To be human is to wrestle with idealism, and all the best writers (including some laureates) make that struggle feel less overwhelming through the tip of their pen. These writers artistically represent the profundity of being human: they make the deep-rooted experiences of humanity accessible to the average reader. It is not an easy feat to capture the zeitgeist, let alone make the diverse features of human nature intelligible. The grief of a sudden loss, the joy of a warm smile, the hope of a new morning, the fear of an unseen future: great writers seize the ineffable impact of these moments and finely package them for their readers. The Academy, a humanitarian project, proudly winks at these efforts to propel the human spirit with finely crafted novels, essays, and speeches.

Camus, across his career, was able to artistically represent the human experience, which is why he was awarded the Nobel in 1957. To Camus, part of the work of being authentically human is to participate in the gradual work of meaning-making despite the threat of nihilism, such as in his masterful work, The Plague. In this novel, Camus establishes the practice of meaning-making primarily through the selfless acts of Dr. Rieux as he battles the eponymous illness. Rieux’s voice, which is ultimately revealed as the story’s narrator, consistently prioritizes the safety and comfort of others despite the inherent danger of his occupation. Rieux’s behavior is not motivated by a desire to impress a hidden deity or fulfill a societal obligation. When Rieux is threatened with meaninglessness, he responds with other-focused attention. The clear-sightedness of Camus on this point is impressive all on its own. Camus diagnoses the problem and quickly fetches a cure without lecturing his audience or belittling their experiences. Of course, in the context of twentieth-century Europe, there were many suffering under the assumption of nihilism, just as those in the novel did, but Camus presents their experience graciously and honestly. His refusal to ignore the burdened souls of his neighbors is commendable. Lifting their wounded spirits, Camus suggests a new way forward and even writes a novel centering on this approach in the character of Rieux. While Grass and Alexievich speak authentically about the human condition, only Camus speaks to the truth of Europe’s traumatized soul and presents an alternate path toward renewal. Yes, the darkness of war disillusioned the population, but Camus exemplifies their renewal. Meaning-making is no small feat, so when Camus prods the masses with his clarity of sight on the human condition, the Academy takes notice and awards him appropriately.

Finally, to determine a potential laureate’s merit, it is necessary to consider how a writer’s ideas have infiltrated society and refused to shake loose despite the pervasive tug of time. In some cases, this can be difficult to determine for many years, which is often why the Academy has waited to award a laureate until near the twilight of their career. The value of this tactic is straightforward in that it warrants a writer to have contributed so clearly to the public sphere that their legacy is intact without the aid of the Academy. To be sure, some ideas are not worth preserving, but those that encourage the development of humanity warrant recognition. Philosophers and speechwriters might be predisposed to this type of public attention, but that is not necessarily the case. Ideas can spring forth from all forms of writing. Like an earworm, these ideas stubbornly refuse to be forgotten by the public. Essayists, novelists, and storytellers (of all kinds) are just as capable of producing ideas that outlive their creator. Sometimes, writers are fortunate enough to be contemporaries to their own success. The legacy of many prominent writers is still yet to be determined, and there are some for whom the record will need to be corrected eventually, but when the public recognizes genius, the Academy would be foolish to ignore the coronation. Revelation, rightly identified, is the reason the Nobel Prize exists.

Camus netted the famous prize in 1957 because of the cultural relevance of his insights about meaning and nihilism in post-WWII Europe. Camus, like Alexievich and Grass, was not disconnected from the effects of war. His book The Plague offers a sullied picture of the state of humanity, and Camus’ naked depiction of suffering was likely all too familiar to a people longing for peace. Camus does not hide his face from the depravity, nor does he attempt to cheer up the grieving public. Instead, his writings find their home in little towns decorated with shoddily made hospitals and bullet holes. His writings name the issue of nihilism in post-WWII Europe and signal a way forward through the practice of meaning-making. The relevance of his work seems difficult to dismiss due to the significance of the war. In a world reeling from war, how could the Academy ignore Camus? Even now, Camus remains a beloved figure in his home country of France, and his writings are ranked among the greatest works of literature produced in the twentieth century (The Greatest Books). Grass and Alexievich are both good writers, but their literary legacies are incomparable to Camus. In the case of Alexievich, it may be too early to assess her legacy. In the case of Grass, however, as a former member of the SS, he is just not as worthy of praise as Camus. In the former, a legacy is being formed, and in the latter, a legacy is being re-evaluated, but in the case of Camus, his legacy is secure due to his past and present relevance.
Post-WWII Europe was a field ripe for harvesting by many talented writers, including Günter Grass, Svetlana Alexievich, and Albert Camus.

Notwithstanding the talent of each of these other writers, Camus is the worthiest of the Nobel Prize because of his outstanding body of work, humanistic-centric writing, and legacy of well-reasoned musings on meaning and nihilism. Camus was a true subversive, and his win in 1957 is a testament to his immense talent, which is why he is still so widely read more than sixty years after his tragic death. His bare-knuckled artistry is the particular magic of engaging with the absurdist writer. As Camus wrote in another essay, “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” Incredibly, that “invincible summer” feels just as warm as it did when Camus stood at the podium to accept the Academy’s high honor all those years ago.

Works Cited:
Alfred Nobel’s will. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Sat. 20 Apr 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/>
Camus, Albert. The Plague. Translated by Laura Marris, Vintage Books, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021.
“Le Monde’s 100 Books of the Century.” The Greatest Books: Le Monde’s 100 Books of the Century from Le Monde, thegreatestbooks.org/lists/108. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.
Leroux, Georges. “Between Sunshine and Shadow: The Legacy of Albert Camus.” Queen’s Quarterly, vol. 117, no. 2, 2010, pp. 203–14.
Meyers, Jeffrey. “The Literary Politics of the Nobel Prize.” The Antioch Review, vol. 65, no. 2, 2007, pp. 214–23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40284378. Accessed 20 Apr. 2024.

This essay was originally submitted as part of my MA in English studies at Arizona State University.