The outsider (Penguin Books)

Meursault leads an unremarkable bachelor life in Algiers until he commits a random act of violence. His lack of emotion and failure to show remorse only increase his guilt in the eyes of the law, and challenge the fundamental values of society - a set of rules so binding that any person breaking them is condemned as an outsider.

For Meursault, this is an insult to his reason; for Camus it encapsulates the absurdity of life. In The Outsider (1942), his classic existentialist novel, Camus explores the predicament of the individual who is prepared to face the indifference of the universe, courageously and alone.