The Meursault Investigation: A Novel

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Best Translated Novel of the Decade - Lit Hub A New York Times Notable Book of 2015-Michiko Kakutani, The Top Books of 2015,New York Times-TIME MagazineTop Ten Books of 2015-Publishers WeeklyBest Books of the Year-Financial TimesBest Books of the Year "A tour-de-force reimagining of Camus'sThe Stranger, from the point of view of the mute Arab victims."-The New Yorker 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.

Reviews

A New York Times Notable Book of 2015Michiko Kakutani, The Top Books of 2015,New York TimesTIME MagazineTop Ten Books of 2015Publishers WeeklyBest Books of the YearFinancial TimesBest Books of the Year

"[A] rich and inventive new novel...so convincing and so satisfying that we no longer think of the original story as the truth,but rather come to question it...[a] letter of love rebellion and despair for Algeria."The New York Times Book Review

Nothingprepared me for [Daouds] first novel,The Meursault Investigation, a thrilling retelling of Albert Camuss 1942 classic,The Stranger, from the perspective of the brother of the Arab killed by Meursault, Camuss antihero. The novel...not only breathes new life intoThe Stranger; it also offers a bracing critique of postcolonial Algeria... The premise is ingenious: thatThe Stranger, about the murder of an unnamed Arab on an Algiers beach, was a true storyMeursaultis less a critique ofThe Strangerthan its postcolonial sequel.TheNew York Times Magazine

"[A] stunning debut novel[A]n intricately layered tale that not only makes us reassess Camuss novel but also nudges us into a contemplation of Algerias history and current religious politics; colonialism and postcolonialism; and the ways in which language and perspective can radically alter a seemingly simple story and the social and philosophical shadows it casts backward and forward.Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times

A tour-de-force reimagining of Camuss The Stranger, from the point of view of the mute Arab victims. The New Yorker

[A] retelling of Albert Camuss classic The Stranger from an Algerian perspective...[this] debut novel reaped glowing international reviews, literary honors, and then, suddenly, demands for [Daouds] public execution. New York Times

Daoud has said that his novel is an homage to Albert Camuss The Stranger, but it reads more like a rebuke...Where Camuss godless prose is coolly mathematical in its ratio of words to meaning, Daouds work conducts waves of warmth. The sand and the sea and the sky and the stars, which, for Camus, seem to negate life rather than affirm it, are, for Daoud, vital witnesses and participants in his existence.NewYorker.com

"Kamel Daoud's remarkable debut novel isn't simply a postcolonial reimagining but an allegory of his own country and time...[The Meursault Investigation] has the magnetism of its forebear, but its themes of voicelessness and vengeance feel utterly present-day."Vogue

[A] scorching debut novel that is sure to become an essential companion to Camuss masterpieceThe Meursault Investigation...is a biting, profound response to French colonialism. It is also a lamentation for a modern Algeria gripped by pious fundamentalismThe books brilliance lies in the gradual way Mr. Daoud reveals Harun to be a perfect mirror: the tragic double of Meursault/Camus Daouds prose is propulsive and charged. The pages glitter with memorable phrases. This brave book is a vertiginous response to a century of trauma.The Economist

[A] mesmerizing first novel...The Meursault Investigationhas an inescapable topical resonance, given the role played by political Islam in Algeria in recent times...an absorbing, independent story and a shrewd critique of a country trapped in historys time warp.The Wall Street Journal

"Daoud neither rejects Camus and his colonial legacy outright nor accepts his work uncritically. His resulting meditations are rich and thought-provoking, both for Algerian and for Western readers."The New York Review of Books

"More than a mere reimagining of the primary text,The Meursault Investigationis layered with allusions to Camuss life and his other work."The Washington Post

"Daoud's book stands Camus on his head...What makes Daoud's book so good is that, steeped in independent thinking, it offers an illuminating, if controversial portrait of today's Algeria."Fresh Air, NPR

Give Kamel Daoud credit for audacity. In his debut novel,The Meursault Investigation, the Algerian journalist goes head-to-head with a pillar of 20th century literatureThe true measure of the novelis that Daoud realizes critique is not enoughthe powerand, yes, the beautyofThe Meursault Investigationis that it movesto an unexpected integration in which we recognize that for all the intractable divides of faith or nationality, our humanity remains (how can it not) essentially the same.The Los Angeles Times

"Provocative...What begins as a reproach toThe Strangerfor marginalizing 'the second most important character in the book' becomes a lament for Algeria's long battle for independence, first from French colonists and subsequently from authoritarian Islamism." NPR

"Remarkable...[Kamel Daoud's]core idea is of startling ingenuity...Daoud...takes Albert Camuss classic novel,The Strangeror more precisely the 'majestically nonchalant' murder of an Arab at the heart of itand turns that Arab into a human being rather than the voiceless, characterless, nameless object of a 'philosophical crime' by a Frenchman called Meursault on an Algiers beach 20 years before the culmination of Algerias brutal war of independence."The International New York Times

"WithThe Meursault Investigation, [Kamel] Daoud has achieved the near impossible: a retelling of a classic that consistently measures up."San Francisco Gate

"For its incandescence, its precision of phrase and description, and its cross-cultural significance,TheMeursault Investigationis an instant classic."The Guardian(UK)

"[Kamel] Daoud's book is energetic and garrulous...he has taken a western classic and used it to illuminate the Algerian mind."The Sunday Times(UK)

"The Meursault Investigationis a subversive retelling of Albert CamussThe Outsider...but there is far more to his book than a clever deconstruction of a canonical novel...[it is]a penetrating inquiry into loss itself...It is a testament to Daouds subtle, profound talent that his story works both as a novelistic response to Camus and as a highly original story in its own right.The Meursault Investigationis perhaps the most important novel to emerge out of the Middle East in recent memory, and its concerns could not be more immediate. "Financial Times

"In just 160 spare pages,Daoud recountsand challengesnot only the original narrative of Meursualt, the anti-hero created by Camus, but through bestowing a name, family, legacy, to a forgotten victim, he sharply deconstructs the troubled decades of French-Algerian history, explores the erasure of identity and the legacy of colonialism, examines the consequences of violent independence and the ensuing, ongoing reconstruction of a national identity.To begin to understand all that is surely worth an investment of just a few hours of reading."The Christian Science Monitor

"In...The Meursault Investigation, Mr. Daoud corrects, or 'writes back,' to Camus[TheStranger]from the point of view of the dead Arabs brother...The Meursault Investigationinvokes the language, images and plot ofThe Strangerand adapts them to the Algerian context...Mr. Daouds writing is like a live wire flowing with anger. It sparks fresh insights, raises important questions about the links between literature and politics, and challenges us to view the literary past and political present in new ways.The Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"Quirkyand compellingit is a meditation by turns passionate, cynical, and angry on power, freedom, and the indifference of the universe."Philly.com

In the hands of Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud,The Strangerhas become the springboard for another novel that serves as both homage and rebuke to Camus masterpieceIt is a brilliant, infinitely rich tour de force of the imagination that never mentions Camus by name but gives Meursaults victim not only a nameMusabut a history, a family and a would-be futureIts originality of vision carries the book a long way toward mastery of its formThe Meursault Investigationstirs our imagination, showing that literary classics are never finished."The Wichita Eagle

Humor erupts inThe Meursault Investigationevery time there is tragedy, and this recipe for the Algerian absurd gives Daouds book its literary stingFor Daoud, the novel is above all an opportunity to engage with the legacy of Algerian independence, half a century old, and to ask what the country has made of its liberation. Daoud turns the novel into an aesthetic platform for his particular sense of the Algerian absurd: the tyranny of official religion and an asphyxiating national history.The Nation

"CamussThe Strangeris vividly reimagined in Daouds intensely atmospheric novel...readers will be captivated."Publishers Weekly (Starred review)

"The nameless Arab victim of Albert Camus'sThe Strangerreceives a biography and a name in thisthoughtful, controversial rejoinder from the other side of the colonial question...Fiction with a strong moral edge, offering a Rashomon-like response to a classic novel."Kirkus Reviews

"[A] blazing, brilliantly conceived debut novel...An eye-opening, humbling read, splendid whether or not you know and love the original."Library Journal

In The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud takes us to a territory that is clearly his own. I loved the unex

Author Bio

Kamel Daoud is an Algerian journalist based in Oran, where he writes for the Quotidien d'Oran-the third largest French-language Algerian newspaper. He contributes a weekly column to Le Point, and his articles have appeared in Liberation, Le Monde, Courrier International, and are regularly reprinted around the world. A finalist for the Prix Goncourt, The Meursault Investigation won the Prix Fran ois Mauriac and the Prix des Cinq-Continents de la francophonie. International rights to the novel have been sold in twenty countries. A dramatic adaptation of The Meursault Investigation will be performed at the 2015 Festival d'Avignon, and a feature film is slated for release in 2017. John Cullen was the translator of many books from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, including Siegfried Lenz's The Turncoat, Juli Zeh's Empty Hearts, Patrick Modiano's Villa Triste, Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation, and Philippe Claudel's Brodeck.