The Stranger

Camus's novel of Meursault, who refuses to pretend grief he does not feel — and is condemned for the sun.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Albert Camus

type

Philosophical novel

era

Occupied France (1942)

language

French

setting

Algiers, French Algeria

parts

2 parts

Relative Scale in Novels

Core Principles & Analysis

• Published in 1942, in the same season as The Myth of Sisyphus.
• Its flat first line — about Mother's death — sets the narrator's unnerving honesty.
• The trial condemns Meursault less for murder than for not weeping.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Stranger (novel)