a book

The Stranger

Name: The Stranger
Rating: 5 (13 reviews)
Author: Albert Camus
ISBN: 9780679720201

Albert Camus · 1989 · 144 pages

The masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, now in a striking American English translation, The Stranger remains vital for its unsettling insights into the impossibility of moral certainty in the face of violence.

“Matthew Ward has done Camus and us a great service. The Stranger is now a different and better novel for its American readers; it is now our classic as well as France’s.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Since it was first published in English, in 1946, Albert Camus’s first novel, The Stranger (L’etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.”

Now, in this illuminating translation, extraordinary for its exactitude and clarity, the original intent of The Stranger is made more immediate. This haunting novel has been given a new life for generations to come.

recommended by 13 people

sourced from public statements

Kyle Maynard
“The book I’ve given most as a gift.”↗
George Bush
“The book really does inspire you to be able to stick by your guns when you're surrounded by a lot of gloom-doomers and naysayers.”↗
Sam Parr
“"This weekend I read The Stranger, a French novel. Le Monde named it the best book of the 20th century. Its only 100 pages. ... I've never read such a simple book that has had such an impact on me."”↗
Suzanne Vega
“I love the brevity of this book and its cool tone. I was thinking of it in my song ‘Cracking,’ and some others — extreme emotion delivered dryly without sentiment. A gem.”↗
Kaia Gerber
“I think The Stranger was the first philosophy book I ever read. I loved how to the point it was, because I had this idea of what reading philosophy was in my head, but the way that Camus writes is so matter-of-fact. As you’re reading it, you almost don’t even realize all of these massive, sweeping philosophical questions that are being posed, because of how straightforwardly he puts them. He almost tricks you into grappling with them. I think it’s just a brilliant book on its own terms, but as an introduction to philosophy, it’s perfect.”↗
David Heinemeier Hansson
Lex Fridman
Brian Koppelman
Ryan Shea
Xavier Le Clerc
Kim Nam-joon
Gaby Goldberg
Nolan Bushnell