Althusser's thought remains crucial reading for students of Marxist analytical theory as well as late-twentieth-century philosophy.
Althusser is also notorious for murdering his wife, Hélène Légotien, in 1980, during an apparent psychotic episode. Any consideration of the life of Althusser is confronted with this haunting teleology. This psychotic break and its aftermath have influenced many evaluations of Althusser's life--including his own posthumously published autobiographical work L'avenir dure longtemps; suivi de, Les faits (1992; translated as The Future Lasts a Long Time and The Facts, 1993). Although the murder of his wife cannot be ignored, focusing on this event alone does not permit one to make a full scholarly appraisal of Althusser's life and work.
Louis Althusser was born at 4:30 A.M. on 16 October 1918 in Birmandreïs, Algeria, which was then a French colony. His mother's family had a long history in Algeria. Her parents, Madeleine Nectoux and Pierre Berger, the children of poor peasants from the Morvan region of Nièvre, France, were both born in Algeria. Althusser's maternal grandfather was a forester in some of the most remote regions of Algeria. He and his wife, Madeleine, lived a rustic existence isolated from other French expatriates but surrounded by Arabs and Berbers who lived and worked around them.
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