/ world today news/ Albert Camus – 60 years since his death. “The vocation of the writer is to unite people against the dictatorship of evil!”
Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) received the Nobel Prize for Literature on December 10, 1957 for: “… the importance of his literary works, which pose with insightful seriousness the problems of our day”. He received it after Kipling at a time when the names of: Malraux, Sartre, Pasternak, Saint John Perce and Beckett were shining in cultural Europe. This, of course, caused controversy in the French media. His political views, which are not liked by most of the French intellectuals, have been severely criticized. Camus himself stated that the award should have gone to Andre Malraux.
Albert Camus chose “the place of the writer in public life” as the topic of his speech in Stockholm and Uppsala. On this important issue for him, he shared his thoughts in “The Rebel Man” (1951).
OGNIAN STAMBOLIEV
IN ACCEPTING THE PRIZE with which your free Academy has most generously conferred upon me, I feel a sense of immense gratitude, and am fully conscious of the extent to which this high distinction surpasses my humble personal merits. Every person, especially if he is a creator, strives for recognition. This applies to me as well. But learning about your decision, I involuntarily compared its significance with what I actually represent. Anyone who is still young enough and rich only with his doubts and has not yet perfected his writing skills, would feel a sense of dread at the announcement of this decision, which placed him under the blinding spotlight of fame. And how would he accept this high honor, since in Europe other really great writers are condemned to remain unknown?
Yes, I knew that panicked fear, that inner turmoil. And in order to regain my peace of mind, I had to compare my modest personality with this undeserved gift of fate. And as it was difficult for me to match the prize, relying solely on my own merits, I found nothing else but to call to my aid that which throughout my life hitherto, under various circumstances, had sustained and strengthened me , namely the idea of my literary work and the role of the writer in society.
Let me now, filled with feelings of gratitude and friendship, explain this to the best of my ability.
I cannot live without my creativity. But I never put it above everything else. On the contrary, I need it precisely for this: not to distance myself from people, to stay true to myself, to live like others. In my eyes, creativity is not the only consolation for the artist. It is a means to excite the feelings of more people, to give them a “chosen”, sublime image of everyday sufferings and joys. That is why it does not oblige the creator to be alone, subjects him to the most banal tests, offers him universal truths. It happens that a person chooses the lot of the artist because he feels “chosen”, but very soon he is convinced that his art draws strength from one source: the recognition of equality with others. The creator is created and strengthened precisely in this continuous wandering between himself and others, on the way to beauty and to human communication, without which he cannot. That is why the true creator is alien to haughty contempt: he respects others and does not judge them. And if he has to choose someone’s side, he chooses the side of society, which according to Nietzsche’s great sentence “To reign is not given to Fate, but to the Creator”.
That’s why the writer’s role is inseparable from human duties and concerns. He should not be the servant of those who make history, but of those who endure it. Otherwise, he is threatened with loneliness and excommunication from art.
Only the silence of the unknown prisoner, doomed to humiliation somewhere at the end of the world, is enough to save the writer from the torment of isolation. But none of us is great enough for this calling. In all circumstances of his life – unknown or famous, shackled in the chains of tyranny or relatively free – the writer must be in solidarity with the people. Only this will justify its existence, of course, if it relies only on itself and serves truth and freedom. The vocation of the writer is to unite people against the dictatorship of Evil. He cannot count on the slavery and falsehood that are everywhere. Whatever his personal weaknesses, the nobility of the craft will be based on these two difficult duties – in refusing to lie and in resisting slavery.
For more than twenty years I, thrown and helpless – like all my peers – in the mad maelstrom of time, kept in myself a vague feeling that the profession of the writer today is honorable, that this occupation obliges and obliges not only to write. Those of us born at the end of the First World War turned twenty at the moment when Hitler seized power and the nightmare of the Spanish Civil War began, and after that the Second World War, with the hell of the concentration camps.
Today we must educate our sons and create values in a world threatened by new wars. So I don’t think you can ask us to be optimistic. I even maintain the opinion that we are obliged to understand – of course, without ceasing to fight – the error of those who did not resist despair and fell into the abyss of modern nihilism. But the fact remains: most of us – both in my homeland and throughout Europe – have already rejected this nihilism and sought a new meaning of life. We must master the art of living in a time of uncertainty, on the brink of new world storms.
Our generation believed that it was called to transform the world, in fact this is what every new generation wants. But unfortunately we were not able to do something big despite our desire. Yet we fought for truth and freedom. So I think this generation deserves to be praised, especially where they sacrifice. For this reason I wish to redirect the honors you are paying me today.
And now, giving due credit to the noble craft of the writer, I would also like to define his true place in public life, though he possess no other titles and dignities than those which he shares with his fellows in pen and fight: defenseless, but firm , unjust but in love with justice, giving birth to their creations without shame but also without pride, before the eyes of all, eternally torn between suffering and beauty, and finally, called to call forth from the depths of the dual soul of the artist images that he persistently and hopelessly struggling to establish itself amidst the destructive hurricane of history. Who then would dare to ask him for ready-made solutions? Truth is a mysterious thing – it is forever slipping away – it must be conquered again and again. Freedom is dangerous – to possess it is difficult. We must strive for these two goals, albeit with more effort, but resolutely move forward, even though we know how many failures and falls lie in wait for us on this thorny path. As for me, I would never give up the light, the joy of being, the free life. And though the pursuit of all this has been the cause of my errors and delusions, it has really helped me to master my craft, and it helps me now, and prompts me instinctively to hold on to all the condemned to silence and muteness, who offer their life only thanks to memories or brief, unexpected moments of happiness.
And so, having defined my true nature, my limits, my debts, and also the symbol of my difficult faith, I feel how much easier I am now. In conclusion, I want to thank you for your immense generosity, for the honor you have bestowed upon me. And as a sign of my appreciation, to give here an oath of fidelity, which the true creator makes silently, in his soul, every day.
Note and translation from French Ognyan Stamboliev
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