The outsider - Albert Camus

The Outsider, by Nobel Prizewinner Albert Camus, is considered to be one of the most important modern French novels, and is the forerunner of a great deal of contemporary writing.

Meursault is a young man who works as a clerk in Algiers. He lives in the usual manner of a French-Algerian, middle-class bachelor—cooking his evening meal for himself in his small flat, sleeping with his girl at the weekends, bathing, going to the pictures. But he has a glaring fault in the eyes of society—he seems to lack the basic emotions and reactions (including hypocrisy) that are required of him. He observes the facts of life, death, and sex from the outside. Even when he is involved in a personal tragedy which results in a frightening and unjust trial, he considers his own feelings and the actions of others with a calm and almost ironic truthfulness.