One of France’s most high-profile writers, Albert Camus experienced both public adulation and acrimonious rejection during a career cut short by a fatal car accident in 1960. Edward J. Hughes analyses the life of an author whose work and stance were the subject of both intense interest and scrutiny. ‘I do not guide anyone’ Camus was to plead in his last interview, thereby reinforcing the paradox of a leading figure who in private wrestled with the challenge of pursuing his craft as a writer in an age of pressing ideological conflict.