Albert Camus was a French Nobel Prize-winning author, philosopher, and journalist. He was born in Algeria in 1913 and is best known for his works of fiction, such as The Stranger and The Plague. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 for his work exploring the absurd and advocating for humanism. Camus was a major contributor to the philosophy of existentialism and is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.