Cover of The Stranger

Classics · Literary

The Stranger

Bestseller: about 10 million copies (estimate)

Meursault, a detached clerk in French Algeria, attends his mother's funeral without grief and, soon after, commits a killing on a beach. His trial turns less on the act than on how he behaves.

First published
1942
Pace
slow
Length
short
Format
Standalone

Read this if you want a short, cold classic of existentialist fiction.

Skip this if you want an emotional connection to the narrator; he is deliberately flat.

The feel

Content warnings

  • Death
  • Violence

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