Outsider

Product Description

' My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday I don't know.' Sandra Smith's new 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. 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. 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."