Albert Camus had a long association with Lourmarin and he is buried in the town's cemetery. David took a break from painting and photographed his grave.
Camus was friends with the poet Renee Char and initially looked for a house near him in L'Isle sur la Sorgue, but eventually bought a house in Lourmarin using his prize money from the Nobel Prize for literature which he won in 1957. Camus was captivated by the beauty of the Luberon hills which dominate the northern view from the village.
He wrote in his diaries of 'The first star over the Luberon, the enormous silence, the cypresses' describing the Luberon as ' this solemn and austere land in spite of its overwhelming beauty'. For him living in Lourmarin was 'un halte de paix dans la voyage de la vie'. The view across the plain to the valley of the Aigebrun reminded him of the plain of Mitidja in Algeria where he grew up.
Camus died in a car crash just south of Paris at the age of 46 and was buried in Lourmarin. In 2009 President Sarkozy put forward plans to rebury him in the Pantheon in Paris. His son objected and so for the moment his remains stay at Lourmarin.
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