The Stranger

The Stranger is a 1942 novella by French author Albert Camus. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus'' philosophy absurdism coupled with existentialism though Camus personally rejected the latter label.The title character is Meursault an indifferent French settler in Algeria described as 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. Weeks after his mother''s funeral he kills an Arab man in French Algiers who was involved in a conflict with one of Meursault''s neighbors. Meursault is tried and sentenced to death. The story is divided into two parts presenting Meursault''s first-person narrative view before and after the murder respectively.