The Outsider

'My mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don't know.' Mersault will not pretend. Unmoved by the death of his mother, he refuses to show sadness just to satisfy the expectations of others. Then, when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach in Algiers, his lack of emotion only compounds his guilt in the eyes of society. Albert Camus' portrayal of a man confronting the absurdity of human life became an existentialist classic. Yet it is also a book filled with quiet joy in the physical world, and this new translation, based on listening to recordings of Camus reading aloud, sensitively renders the subtleties and dreamlike atmosphere of l'Etranger.