Musa’s story: Reading The Meursault Investigation alongside Camus

This reading will be a little bit different - hence the advance notice.

We will read The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (translated by John Cullen), a retelling of Albert Camus' The Outsider - giving a name, voice, and backstory to "the Arab" killed on the Algerian beach.

For over 70 years, the victim in Camus’s classic was known only as "the Arab" - anonymous and voiceless. In his award-winning novel, Daoud finally gives him a name, a family, and a history, turning a philosophical prop into a human being.

Both books are under 150 pages, so I'd highly recommend reading The Outsider first before moving onto The Meursault Investigation, though this isn't essential.

We'll ask questions such as:

• Does giving the victim a face change how you read the original "senseless" murder?
• Meursault and Harun are very different narrators - whose perspective feels more truthful or more unsettling?
• Is Harun's life defined by his mother’s grief in the same way Meursault’s is defined by his indifference?
• Why did Daoud choose to write his response in French?
• Does Daoud’s "counter-investigation" successfully provide the justice that Camus's book ignored?