Albert Camus: Literature As Vocation, Journalism and Publishing as Livelihood
For Camus, writing was never incidental. From his early twenties he kept the Carnets ( notebooks) , drafted plays like Caligula by 1938, and conceived the “cycles” of the Absurd, Revolt and Love that would structure L’Étranger, Le Mythe de Sisyphe_, La Peste and L’Homme révolté. He organised his days to write each morning and called himself a writer long before the public did. The impression that literature was “part-time” comes only from the fact that, until his mid-30s, he needed paid employment to survive. The jobs were the support structure; the books were the purpose.
Engagements and Primary Income Sources: Period Wise
1938–1940: Algiers
He worked as a journalist at Alger républicain and Soir républicain . Wrote 1,000+ articles, court reports, and editorials. This was his salary.Evenings he devoted to writing the manuscripts of L’Étranger and Caligula.
1940–1942: Occupied France
He did private tutoring, proofreading, and odd jobs. It was a period of struggle. However, during this period he finished L’Étranger and Le Mythe de Sisyphe. He lived partly on his wife Francine’s teaching income.
1943–1947: Paris
He became editor-in-chief of the newspaper Combat. Joined this clandestine Resistance paper in 1943, ran it after Liberation. Wrote 165+ editorials. This made him a public figure and he met his expenses from this income.
1943–1960: Paris
He joined Éditions Gallimard. He was hired as a manuscript reader in late 1943. In 1945 became director of the “Espoir” collection and a member of the reading committee. Kept an office at Rue Sébastien-Bottin until his death. At Gallimard, he was paid per manuscript or a small retainer. In 1944 that equalled 2,000–3,000 old francs per month , roughly €300–€450 in today’s money, a schoolteacher’s wage, barely enough in war-time Paris. At this point ,Combat was his real income. Over the next 13 years, as he became a senior editor, his Gallimard pay rose. By 1957, France-Observateur reports that senior Gallimard editors earned 120,000 francs/month, and Camus was at that level roughly €3,000–€3,500/month in 2026 terms.
Combat was also a proper salaried post.Estimates from Olivier Todd and Herbert Lottman put it at 50,000 old francs/month in 1947, rising to 100,000–120,000 old francs/month by 1955. In 2026 terms: €1,800–€2,200/month in 1947, €3,000–€3,500/month by 1955.
Author Royalties: 1942–1960
In 1942, L’Étranger brought reputation but modest money. La Peste in 1947 sold 100,000 copies in months and made him financially secure.
Theatre: 1940–1950
Adapted, directed and staged Caligula, Les Justes, L’État de siège. Box-office and performance rights added to his income.
Nobel Prize: 1957–1960
He earned 175,000 Swedish kronor ≈ 13 million old francs, about $33,600 USD in 1957. That’s roughly €350,000–€400,000 in 2026 terms. He bought the house in Lourmarin and invested the rest.
He was middle-class, not rich. He and Francine shared a two-room flat and worried about heating bills. After La Peste, L’Étranger had sold 250,000+ copies by 1950. At a standard 10% royalty, Camus earned 5 million old francs from it alone equivalent to 4–5 years of his Gallimard salary. From this point, book royalties dwarfed his editor’s pay.
Camus refused university chairs and ministry posts. The Gallimard position was ideal: intellectual work, contact with writers, afternoons free, and no political compromise. He told Jean Grenier that the salary was “sufficient and it leaves me free.” Mornings were for his own manuscripts; 2 p.m.–6 p.m. at Gallimard. The Nobel Prize in 1957 made him independently wealthy. Yet he stayed at Gallimard until the car crash in January 1960. The job was identity, not necessity.
Literature was Camus’s vocation from the start, but journalism and publishing were his livelihood until La Peste made him self-sufficient at 34. His Gallimard salary of roughly €3,000/month in today’s terms was a solid bourgeois income in 1950s Paris, but by then, it was a fraction of what his novels earned. He kept the post for discipline and independence, not for money. As he wrote in 1951: “I have no taste for what is called a career. I have a taste for writing.” The salary kept the lights on; the books made the light.
Financial Support to His Mother
Camus supported his mother financially throughout his adult life. Once he began working, first as a clerk, then journalist , he sent money home. Biographer Olivier Todd notes Camus “struggled all his life with irreconcilable conflicts between his loyalty to family and his passionate nature.” His Carnets and letters show he was conscious of his mother’s situation. He said he wrote in plain, simple language “because of his mother… He wanted to write in a language that would not feel like a stranger to the silent, illiterate woman waiting in the Belcourt apartment.”
When the Nobel was announced, his first thought was of two people: his teacher Louis Germain and his mother. In his Nov 19, 1957 letter to Germain he wrote: “But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my mother, was of you. Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small poor child that I was .....none of all this would have happened.”
His mother remained dependent on him. She was still living in Algiers. Camus died in a car crash Jan 4, 1960; his mother died of natural causes in Algiers in September 1960. He was her main support until the end. He regularly sent money to his mother from the time he started earning, and the prize gave him financial security that allowed him to keep supporting her.
( Avtar Mota )
Sources
1. Olivier Todd: Albert Camus: A Life
2. Herbert R. Lottman: Albert Camus: A Biography_
3. Camus Carnets : Three posthumously published notebooks covering 1935–1959. In English: Notebooks 1935-1942, Notebooks 1942-1951, Notebooks 1951-1959.
4. Correspondence with teacher/philosopher Jean Grenier and publisher friend Michel Gallimard.
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