The Meursault Investigation

[Dave Monroe]

Kamel Daoud translated from the French by John Cullen

The Meursault Investigation

Publication Date: Jun 02, 2015

160 PP

He was the brother of “the Arab” killed by the infamous Meursault, the
antihero of Camus’s classic novel. Seventy years after that event,
Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling’s
memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: he gives his brother a
story and a name—Musa—and describes the events that led to Musa’s
casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.

In a bar in Oran, night after night, he ruminates on his solitude, on
his broken heart, on his anger with men desperate for a god, and on
his disarray when faced with a country that has so disappointed him. A
stranger among his own people, he wants to be granted, finally, the
right to die.

The Stranger is of course central to Daoud’s story, in which he both
endorses and criticizes one of the most famous novels in the world. A
worthy complement to its great predecessor, The Meursault
Investigation is not only a profound meditation on Arab identity and
the disastrous effects of colonialism in Algeria, but also a stunning
work of literature in its own right, told in a unique and affecting
voice.

http://www.otherpress.com/books/meursault-investigation/
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