Albert Camus’s The Stranger explores themes of absurdity

Albert Camus’s 1942 novel, ‘The Stranger’, remains a significant work of French literature, exploring themes of absurdity and the human condition in the aftermath of World War I and during World War II.

The narrative follows Meursault, a man living in French Algeria who exhibits profound indifference toward social norms, his mother’s death, and his own fate. The plot intensifies when Meursault becomes involved in a conflict involving his neighbor, Raymond, leading him to kill an Arab man on a beach with a revolver.

Written within a colonialist context, the novel is noted for its raw, detached narrative style and its depiction of a character who lacks traditional emotional warmth or connection to the world around him.