Ĭonsidered a classic of 20th-century literature, The Stranger has received critical acclaim for Camus' philosophical outlook, absurdism, syntactic structure, and existentialism (despite Camus' rejection of the label), particularly within its final chapter. The Stranger gained popularity among anti-Nazi circles following its focus in Jean-Paul Sartre's 1947 article 'Explication de L'Étranger '. It began being published in English from 1946, first in the United Kingdom, where its title was changed to avoid confusion with the translation of Maria Kuncewiczowa's novel of the same name after being published in the United States, the novella retained its original name, and the British-American difference in titles has persisted in subsequent editions. Published during the Nazi occupation of France, it went on sale without censorship or omission by the Propaganda-Staffel. The original French-language first edition of the novella was published on May 19, 1942, by Gallimard, under its original title it appeared in bookstores from that June but was restricted to an initial 4,400 copies, so few that it could not be a bestseller. Ĭamus completed the initial manuscript by May 1941, with revisions were suggested by André Malraux, Jean Paulhan, and Raymond Queneau and later adopted in the final version.

The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative before and after the killing. The first of Camus' novels published in his lifetime, the story follows Meursault, an indifferent settler in French Algeria, who, weeks after his mother's funeral, kills an unnamed Arab man in Algiers. The Stranger (French: L'Étranger ), also published in English as The Outsider, is a 1942 novella written by French author Albert Camus.

Meursault the stranger