Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize and thanked teacher who once believed in a poor child: 'Without you...'

In 1957, when Albert Camus won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature, he couldn't stop thinking about his beloved teacher, Louis Germain. Before the world came to celebrate the French author, he was under Germain, who had offered to give him free lessons to secure a scholarship. To honor that very special personality, Camus sent his childhood teacher a heartwarming letter, expressing how grateful he was just to be his student. 

"I let the commotion around me these days subside a bit before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart," Camus began his letter, talking about how he had been honored with something he had never dreamt of. When he first heard the news, Camus confessed he immediately thought about Germain, his teacher, the only one after his mother who had such a great impact on his life. "Without you, without the affectionate hand you extended to the small, poor child that I was, without your teaching and example, none of all this would have happened," he added in his letter. The Nobel Prize, the highest distinction for literary achievement, Camus confessed, was more like an opportunity for him to remind his teacher that he hadn't forgotten anything about his generous heart. 

"I don’t make too much of this sort of honor. But at least it gives me the opportunity to tell you what you have been and still are for me and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the generous heart you put into it still live in one of your little schoolboys who, despite the years, has never stopped being your grateful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart," he wrote in his letter, dated November 19, 1957. Touched by his student's heartfelt gesture, Germain wrote back to Camus, reflecting upon how, despite his success, he would always be nothing more than his "little Camus" to him. "I have the impression that those who try to penetrate your nature do not quite succeed. You have always shown an instinctive reticence about revealing your nature, your feelings. You succeed all the more for being unaffected, direct," he said.

Further, Germain went on to explain how Camus' optimism and overtly jolly nature in school never made him suspect that he, in fact, came from an extremely poor family where survival was an everyday struggle. "I only had a glimpse when your mother came to see me about your being listed among the candidates for the scholarship. Anyway, that happened when you were about to leave me. But until then you seemed to me to be in the same position as your classmates," Germain recalled. His teacher then complimented Camus' mother for taking such good care of him and appreciated the author for not being arrogant about his success. "I love you too much not to wish you the greatest success: it is what you deserve. Know that, even when I do not write, I often think of all of you," Germain concluded.

Camus was so grateful for all that Gernain had done for him that even after years, he didn't forget about him. Well, he not only wrote to his biggest well-wisher, but he also wholeheartedly confessed the love he had for his educator. Surprisingly, a study comprising 996 people found that 61% of students have actually never told their favorite teacher how much they meant to them. Fortunately, Camus wasn't one among those; otherwise, we couldn't have had the beautiful letter he wrote, which now stands as a testimony to what a teacher-student relationship should truly be like.