The Outsider

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Summary

Albert Camus' laconic masterpiece about a Frenchman who murders an Arab in colonial Algeria is famous in its time for diagnosing a state of alienation and spiritual exhaustion which summed up the mood of the mid-twentieth century. Today, more than fifty years after its first appearance, we can see that this early success was no passing fashion: The Outsider continues to speak to us of ultimate things with the force of a parable and the excitement of a thriller and remains one of the most widely read and influential classics of the century.

About the author

Albert Camus

Albert Camus (1913-60) grew up in a working-class neighbourhood in Algiers. He studied philosophy at the University of Algiers, and became a journalist. His most important works include The Outsider, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague and The Fall. After the occupation of France by the Germans in 1941, Camus became one of the intellectual leaders of the Resistance movement. He was killed in a road accident, and his last unfinished novel, The First Man, appeared posthumously.

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