Camus's rapid rise to celebrity between 1942 and 1945 is unparalleled in the history of French literature: The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, the two plays Caligula and The Misunderstanding, together with Camus's role in the Resistance and the widespread interest in his Combat editorials, started his career in meteoric fashion. This sudden fame was not easy for the young writer, and there were many in the clannish and often supercilious world of Paris letters who, as long as he lived, reproached Camus for something he had neither sought nor wanted. (p. 4)

Camus never allowed himself to forget that he had once been a lonely child, defenseless against himself and against a paradoxical and often shockingly brutal world. This early unhappiness was the source of much of his strength and even, sometimes, of his inflexibility.

Another of the motivating forces behind both Camus's actions and his work was a violent...