Blanche Balain
Blanche Balain was a French stage actress and poet. Writer Albert Camus met her in Algiers in 1937, and for a time she was one of his mistresses. From 1937-59, the two maintained a correspondence resulting in 89 letters whose authenticity has been verified by Catherine Camus (the author's daughter). Camus helped publish several of her poems before his death in 1961, and she eventually released seven books in her lifetime.