SOURCE: "Poverty in the Writings of Albert Camus," in Polity, Vol. XXIX, No. 3, Spring, 1997, pp. 441-60.

In the following essay, Letemendia explores Camus's early experiences with poverty, as revealed in The First Man, and his outrage over society's indifference toward the plight of the poor. According to Letemendia, Camus viewed poverty as "both a moral and political crime against humanity."

Albert Camus approached the understanding of poverty from the viewpoint of both an internal and an external witness. He had experienced poverty in his youth, as he describes in his autobiographical novel, Le premier homme, but acknowledged that education, financial security and fame had distanced him from the poor, and did not consider that his own experience gave him the authority to speak for other poor people. Unlike some on the French left, he saw freedom as equally essential to a fully human life as material well-being: the...