The Stranger or the Man is Always a Little Guilty Anyway

„We’re done for today, Mister Anti-Christ.“

Albert Camus’s 1942 novel, The Stranger, is widely considered to be one of the key works of literary existentialism. The protagonist Meursault, an accidental murderer, is sentenced to death because he refused to accept an assigned role within the stereotypical social structure. Without bearing any resemblances to a heroic character, “The Stranger” agrees to die for truth without ever imposing it onto anyone. He accepts reality, but he never judges it. He is a stranger in the world, a nonparticipating voyeur. A parallel between the contemporary novel of South African writer J. M. Coetze Disgrace comes to mind. The Stranger turned Albert Camus into a “spiritual father” of the post-war generation.

warning: cigarettes