Camus, the absurd and existentialism

Abstract

In the mid-70s of the twentieth century, I lived and studied philosophy in Concepción, a city in southern Chile, and tried to catch up with the classics of literature. I had read the Latin Americans, Vargas Llosa, García Márquez, Sábato, Donoso, Cortázar, and thanks to them I discovered Jean Paul Sartre, Kafka, Herman Hesse and Albert Camus. These readings made him live those twenty years turned into a fervent existentialist who had been coming out of Marxism. I thought that life was absurd and that the real philosophy was to know that five minutes after being dead there would be nothing left of me. I saw the absurd and existentialism everywhere, in movies, songs, conversations, painting, etc.