Law & Literature: Re-opening the Case of L'Etranger.

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Normey, Rob

Albert Camus' early masterpiece The Stranger, published in 1942, is an enigmatic fable that has entranced generations of readers. One such reader, the Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud, has expressed his admiration for Camus' writings. Despite his appreciation, he also poses serious questions about a glaring omission in The Stranger.

The central act in the novel is the shooting of a man on a beach outside the city of Oran. The protagonist and narrator, Meursault, describes his rather confusing and hard-to fathom actions leading to the firing of five shots in the middle of the afternoon. These shots kill a man. But almost all we learn about the victim springs from the clipped confession of Meursault: "I killed an Arab." Throughout the novel, the victim remains nameless. Instead, the focus is on Meursault, including his having earlier reacted with seeming indifference to news of his mother's recent death.

... Daoud reveals the ways in which Camus' work can be woven into a depiction of today's Algeria

The famous trial imagined by Camus is a striking example of the absurdity inherent in the society of his time--French Algerian society twenty years or so before its demise through a revolutionary insurrection by the indigenous Algerian population. Symbolic of the hypocrisy of the legal system is the manner in which the...