Albert (albɛr). 1913–60, French novelist, dramatist, and essayist, noted for his pessimistic portrayal of humankind's condition of isolation in an absurd world: author of the novels L'Étranger (1942) and La Peste (1947), the plays Le Malentendu (1945) and Caligula (1946), and the essays Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942) and L'Homme révolté (1951): Nobel prize for literature 1957