Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Myth of Sisyphus is a 1942 philosophical essay by Albert Camus that introduces his philosophy of the absurd. Camus argues that recognizing the meaninglessness of life does not justify suicide; instead it requires revolt, freedom, and passion. The essay ends with the conclusion that one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
The Myth of Sisyphus was published in French in 1942. The English translation by Justin O'Brien was first published in 1955 and included a preface Camus wrote in Paris that same year.
Camus defined the absurd as the collision between humanity's fundamental need to find meaning and the "unreasonable silence" of the universe in response. It arises not in the world alone or in human thought alone, but at their confrontation.
Camus rejects suicide because without humanity the absurd itself cannot exist. Eliminating the human side of the contradiction destroys rather than resolves it. He argues in a 1955 preface that suicide is not legitimate even for those who do not believe in God.
Philosophical suicide refers to the move made by thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Shestov, who abandoned reason and turned to faith as a way beyond despair. Camus also applied the term to Husserl's rationalism, which elevated reason into abstract systems that obscure rather than confront the absurd.
The Myth of Sisyphus is dedicated to Pascal Pia. The essay is organized into four chapters and one appendix, the appendix examining the work of Franz Kafka in relation to the absurd.