(1942) [translated as
The Outsider, or
The Stranger] is the first novel that Camus published. It sold well even during the Occupation and became the best selling book ever published by Gallimard – in its paperback series, Folio, started in 1972, 6.6 million copies have been sold. It has been translated into at least 54 languages, and has several times been adapted for the stage and the cinema. It is a story with which readers from widely varying cultures have identified, a classic of the modern world, an engagement in the grand debates of universal humanity. Like Samuel Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot(1953), it speaks to us of a world in which community, God, and other kinds of transcendence no longer seem credible. In contrast to
Waiting for Godot, however, it does not end…
2505 words
Citation: King, Adele. "L'Étranger". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 April 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=19298, accessed 24 November 2024.]
