the outsider introduction.

The stranger outsider is a novel by nobel-prize winning author Albert Camus. It is based on the life a middle aged man called Meursault, who in the heat of the moment (no pun intended), gunned down an Arab. The novel moves on to his trial and subsequent debate. I will not diverge further information because: I don't want to ruin it and I haven't read that far yet.

It was orginially written in French and it is known for its thoroughly descriptive passages and existentialist nature: even though Camus denies it. The translation we are reading was formualted by Joseph Laredo for Hamish Hamilton in 1982 and was published by the Penguin publishing conglomerate a year later.


Born in the November of 1913, in Mondovi, Algeria to a, excuse my french, Pied-Noir family, Albert Camus rose from the ashes of poverty and went to the University of Algiers, where he studied Philosophy. He also played Goal-keeper for the football team. Camus joined the Communist party but was later dismissed and accused of being a Trotskyist. He was later linked with anarchist movements. He moved to Paris to work for the Paris Soir newspaper agency.During WWII he was part of the French resistance and founded,and wrote for, the under-ground newspaper: Combat. He won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1957. 3 years later, Camus sadly died, with his friend, in a car crash in 1960, at the age of 46. In his pocket: a train ticket. He had planned to travel by train that day.

Note: A link to the novel online is added to the sidebar, however one should note that the translations, like the Ivan Denisovich version, are slightly different. However, the subject matter remains the same.