The Meursault Investigation - Softcover

Daoud, Kamel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590517512 ISBN 13: 9781590517512

Publisher: Other Press (NY), 2015

Synopsis

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 Magazine Top Ten Books of 2015 -- Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year -- Financial Times Best Books of the Year

"A tour-de-force reimagining of Camus's The 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.

About this title

About the Author

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 Libération, Le Monde, Courrier International, and are regularly reprinted around the world. A finalist for the Prix Goncourt, The Meursault Investigation won the Prix François 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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Mama's still alive today.

She doesn't say anything now, but there are many tales she could tell. Unlike me: I've rehashed this story in my head so often, I almost can't remember it anymore. 

I mean, it goes back more than half a century. It happened, and everyone talked about it.  People still do, but they mention only one dead man, they feel no compunction about doing that, even though there were two of them, two dead men. Yes, two. Why does the other one get left out? Well, the original guy was such a good storyteller, he managed to make people forget his crime, whereas the other one was a poor illiterate created by God only, it seems, to take a bullet and return to dust'an anonymous person who didn't even have the time to be given a name. 

I'll tell you this up front: the other dead man, the murder victim, was my brother. There's nothing left of him. There's only me, left to speak in his place, sitting in this bar, waiting for condolences no one's ever going to offer me. Laugh if you want, but this is more or less my mission: I peddle offstage silence, trying to sell my story while the theater empties out. As a matter of fact, that's the reason why I've learned to speak this language, and to write it too: so I can speak in the place of a dead man, so I can finish his sentences for him. The murderer has become famous, and his story's too well written for me to get any ideas about imitating him. He wrote in his own language. Therefore I'm going to do what was done in this country after Independence: I'm going to take the stones from the old houses the colonists left behind, remove them one by one, and build my own house, my own language.

Edition details

• Publisher: Other Press (NY)
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1590517512
• ISBN 13: 9781590517512
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160