About the Book: The Outsider
The classic existentialist novel, in a wonderful new translation by Sandra
Smith, now in paperback
Meursault leads an unremarkable bachelor life in Algiers until he commits a
random act of violence. His lack of emotion and failure to show remorse only
increase his guilt in the eyes of the law, and challenge the fundamental values
of society - a set of rules so binding that any person breaking them is
condemned as an outsider. For Meursault, this is an insult to his reason; for
Camus it encapsulates the absurdity of life. In The Outsider (1942), his classic
existentialist novel, Camus explores the predicament