From the cold war period through the Algerian struggle for independence and into the 1960s, reaction to both the man and his work often turned to hostility and ridicule, especially among left-wing intellectuals in France who thought that he had betrayed them. Outside of France, where Camus has been the subject of more detached critical inquiry, his reputation has continued to grow. The flow of criticism on Camus is matched only by the perennially high sales figures of his major works, both in French and in translation. Camus remains a popular but controversial writer whose importance and influence are undeniable. To understand the ongoing controversy, his thought and work must be seen in the decisive contexts of his formative years in North Africa and his self-imposed "exile" in Paris during and after World War II.
The younger of two brothers, Albert Camus was born on 7 November 1913 in Mondovi (named after a Napoleonic victory) in Algeria, which remained a French colony until its independence in 1962. His father, Lucien Auguste Camus (1885-1914), who lived most of his adult life in Algiers where he worked for a wine distributor, had taken the family to Mondovi shortly before Camus's birth.
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