The stranger

Abstract

The Outsider or The Stranger (French: L’Étranger) is a novel by Albert Camus published in 1942. The titular character is Meursault, an indifferent Algerian ("a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture") who, after attending his mother's funeral, apathetically and seemingly irrationally kills an Arab man whom he recognises in French Algiers. The story is divided into two parts: Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively.