The Outsider By Albert Camus (Paperback, 2013)

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' My mother died today Or maybe yesterday I don't know' In The Outsider (1942) his classic existentialist novel Camus explores the alienation of an individual who refuses to conform to social norms Meursault his anti-hero will not lie When his mother dies he refuses to show his emotions simply to satisfy the expectations of others & when he commits a random act of violence on a sun-drenched beach near Algiers his lack of remorse compounds his guilt in the eyes of society & the law Yet he is as much a victim as a criminal Albert Camus' portrayal of a man confronting the absurd & revolting against the injustice of society depicts the paradox of man's joy in life when faced with the 'tender indifference' of the world Sandra Smith's translation based on close listening to a recording of Camus reading his work aloud on French radio in 1954 sensitively renders the subtleties & dream-like atmosphere of L' Etranger Albert Camus (1913-1960) French novelist essayist & playwright is one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century His most famous works include The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) The Plague (1947) The Just (1949) The Rebel (1951) & The Fall (1956) He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957 & his last novel The First Man unfinished at the time of his death appeared in print for the first time in 1994 & was published in English soon after by Hamish Hamilton Sandra Smith was born & raised in New York City & is a Fellow of Robinson College University of Cambridge where she teaches French Literature & Language She has won the French American Foundation Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize as well as the PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize