Abgesagt: The Stranger

...or The man is always a little guilty anyway.

The novel The Stranger by Albert Camus from 1942 is considered one of the key works of literary existentialism. The protagonist Meursault, an accidental murderer, is sentenced to death because he doesn’t want to accept a role within the social stereotypes. “The Stranger“ with no mark of heroic behavior agrees to die for truth he doesn’t impose on anyone. He accepts reality but he doesn’t judge it. He is a stranger in the world, uninvolved viewer. A parallel between the contemporary novel of South African writer J. M. Coetze Disgrace comes to mind. Publication of The Stranger made Albert Camus a “spiritual father“ of the postwar generation.