From Camus with Love

This was the letter that Albert Camus wrote to Monsieur Germaine, the man who saw his potential when he was living in abject poverty in a cold and unLoving house and decided to tutor him and mentor him, all the while showing him love and kindness.

Albert Camus wrote this letter a few days after winning the Nobel Prize...

19 November 1957

Dear Monsieur Germain,

I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have just been given far too great an honour, one I neither sought nor solicited.

But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened.

I don’t make too much of this sort of honour. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Thank you for Absurdism, my Monsieur Germaine.

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