1957 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the French writer Albert Camus (1913–1960) "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times." He is the ninth French author to become a recipient of the prize after Catholic novelist François Mauriac in 1952, and the fourth philosopher after British analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1950.
Aged 44 when he received the prize, Camus is the second youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after only Rudyard Kipling (41).
Camus made his debut as a writer in 1937, but his breakthrough came with the novel L’étranger ("The Stranger"), published in 1942. It concerns the absurdity of life, a theme he returns to in other books, including his philosophical work Le mythe de Sisyphe ("The Myth of Sisyphus", 1942). He also worked as a journalist and playwright with Caligula (1944), which received praises from theatre critics. Because of his friendship with Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus was labeled an existentialist, but he preferred not to be linked with any ideology. His other successful novels include La peste ("The Plague", 1947), La chute ("The Fall", 1956), and an unfinished autobiography, Le Premier homme ("The First Man"), was published posthumously.
Albert Camus was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature on 11 occasions, the first time in 1949. He was nominated once in 1957 by a French professor of Anglo-Saxon language and literature from the Caen University, which he was awarded afterwards.
In total, the Nobel committee received 66 nominations for 49 writers including Nikos Kazantzakis, E. M. Forster, Alberto Moravia, Georges Duhamel, Jules Romains, Ezra Pound, Saint-John Perse (awarded in 1960), Carlo Levi, Boris Pasternak (awarded in 1958) and Robert Frost. 12 of the nominees were nominated first-time among them Jean-Paul Sartre (awarded in 1964), Lennox Robinson, Jan Parandowski, Samuel Beckett (awarded in 1969), Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, André Chamson, Väinö Linna and Carlo Levi. The nominee with the highest number of nominations – 4 nominations – was for André Malraux. Four of the nominees were women namely Gertrud von Le Fort, Karen Blixen, Henriette Charasson, and Maria Dąbrowska.
The authors Nurullah Ataç, Erich Auerbach, Arturo Barea, Ernst Bertram, Roy Campbell, Joyce Cary, José Lins do Rego, Alfred Döblin, Claude Farrère, Peter Freuchen, Rose Fyleman, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Sacha Guitry, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Eric Alfred Knudsen, Barbu Lăzăreanu, Wyndham Lewis, Malcolm Lowry, Mait Metsanurk, Christopher Morley, Gilbert Murray, Ralph Barton Perry, Clemente Rebora, Aleksey Remizov, Umberto Saba, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa died in 1957 without having been nominated for the prize. French poet Valery Larbaud died before the only chance to be rewarded.
The choice of Albert Camus was well received in France. Following the prize announcement, author and literature critic Émile Henriot wrote in Le Monde: "He is one of the men whose thought and talent honor France, and it is wonderful that this title is recognized with such brilliance abroad. The high literary qualities of his work have, with five or six important books, undoubtedly deserved the place he occupies at the forefront of our writers". Camus himself modestly said: "I wish Malraux had got the prize. He deserved it more than I did".
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1957 Anders Österling, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said:
At the Nobel banquet in Stockholm City Hall on 10 December 1957, Albert Camus held a speech in which he spoke about his idea of his art and the role of the writer. Prior to the speech, Bernard Karlgren, a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, addressed Camus, pointing out the prominent role of France in Western culture and said: