Product Description

Since its publication in France in 1942, Camus’s novel has been translated into sixty languages and sold more than six million copies. In this book, Alice Kaplan narrates the story of the young Albert Camus, who, without any significant prior experience as an author, managed to create a masterpiece that still grips its readers.

Born in poverty in colonial Algeria, Camus started out as a journalist covering the criminal courts, that would be a major influence on the development and themes of The Stranger.  The author follows Camus to France and, making deft use of his diaries and letters, she re-creates his lonely struggle with the novel, showcasing the arduous creative process though which he finally hit upon the unforgettable first-person voice that enabled him to complete The Stranger.

Even then, the book’s publication was far from certain. France was straining under German occupation. Yet, despite the paper shortages and Nazi censorship, the book did appear, thanks in part to a resourceful publisher, Gaston Gallimard. After the liberation, The Stranger began to receive international acclaim and Camus found himself one of the most famous writers of modern literature. Suddenly, the “tender indifference” of the alienated Meursault was being seen for what it really was: a powerful parable of the absurd, an existentialist masterpiece.

The Stranger is among the few books that can be read again and again. The in-depth biography by Alice Kaplan highlights some very interesting, yet unseen, aspects, of its creation. No reader of Camus will want to miss this brilliant exploration.