Absurd! An Evening of Wine and Albert Camus

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum, wine expert and Folio member Jeff McKay and Translator and Folio member Thei Zervaki, invite you to journey to the vineyards of southern France and discover the works of philosopher, author, dramatist and political activist Albert Camus.

Albert Camus  was a French-Algerian journalist, playwright, novelist, philosophical essayist, and Nobel laureate. Though he was neither by advanced training nor profession a philosopher, he nevertheless made important, forceful contributions to a wide range of issues in moral philosophy in his novels, reviews, articles, essays, and speeches—from terrorism and political violence to suicide and the death penalty. 

Camus, who grew up in French colonial Algeria, and  left to live in Paris and southern France in the 1930's, was a lover of wine. Before its Independence from France, Algeria was one of the world's largest wine producers, with almost 1 million acres of vineyards, close to equaling that of France itself. 

Enjoy a curated selection of Southern French,  Spanish, Californian, and Australian wines that resemble the wines of Algeria, and discover the life and literary career of Albert Camus. Readings will be led by Thei and audience members are invited to participate and read from a selection of his works. 

Albert Camus is often described as an existentialist writer, though he himself disavowed the label. By mid-century, based on the strength of his three novels (The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall) and two book-length philosophical essays (The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel), he had achieved an international reputation and readership. It was in these works that he introduced and developed the twin philosophical ideas—the concept of the Absurd and the notion of Revolt—that made him famous.