The Outsider

Camus's iconic 1942 existentialist novel follows Meursault, a man who stands apart from society by refusing to perform the emotions others demand of him. When his mother dies, he declines to feign grief; when he commits a brutal act on an Algerian beach, he shows no remorse. His uncompromising authenticity becomes his undoing as the law and society condemn him for his difference. A stark meditation on alienation, conformity, and the absurdity of human existence.