The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
Definitely, to boost your life top quality, every e-book The Meursault Investigation, By Kamel Daoud will certainly have their particular lesson. Nevertheless, having particular recognition will make you really feel more confident. When you really feel something occur to your life, occasionally, reading publication The Meursault Investigation, By Kamel Daoud can aid you to make tranquility. Is that your actual pastime? In some cases yes, but often will certainly be uncertain. Your selection to check out The Meursault Investigation, By Kamel Daoud as one of your reading books, can be your appropriate publication to review now.
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
Best PDF Ebook Online The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
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.
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud - Amazon Sales Rank: #13281 in Books
- Brand: Daoud, Kamel/ Cullen, John (TRN)
- Published on: 2015-06-02
- Released on: 2015-06-02
- Format: International Edition
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.48" h x .46" w x 5.50" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 160 pages
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud Review
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] 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“Nothing…prepared me for [Daoud’s] first novel, The Meursault Investigation, a thrilling retelling of Albert Camus’s 1942 classic, The Stranger, from the perspective of the brother of the Arab killed by Meursault, Camus’s antihero. The novel...not only breathes new life into The Stranger; it also offers a bracing critique of postcolonial Algeria... The premise is ingenious: that The Stranger, about the murder of an unnamed Arab on an Algiers beach, was a true story…Meursault is less a critique of The Stranger than its postcolonial sequel.” —The New York Times Magazine"[A] stunning debut novel…[A]n intricately layered tale that not only makes us reassess Camus’s novel but also nudges us into a contemplation of Algeria’s 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 Camus’s The Stranger, from the point of view of the mute Arab victims.” —The New Yorker“[A] retelling of Albert Camus’s classic The Stranger from an Algerian perspective...[this] debut novel reaped glowing international reviews, literary honors, and then, suddenly, demands for [Daoud’s] public execution.” —New York Times “Daoud has said that his novel is an homage to Albert Camus’s The Stranger, but it reads more like a rebuke...Where Camus’s godless prose is coolly mathematical in its ratio of words to meaning, Daoud’s 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 Camus’s masterpiece…The Meursault Investigation...is a biting, profound response to French colonialism. It is also a lamentation for a modern Algeria gripped by pious fundamentalism…The book’s brilliance lies in the gradual way Mr. Daoud reveals Harun to be a perfect mirror: the tragic double of Meursault/Camus… Daoud’s 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 Investigation has 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 history’s 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 Investigation is layered with allusions to Camus’s 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 literature…The true measure of the novel…is that Daoud realizes critique is not enough…the power—and, yes, the beauty—of The Meursault Investigation is that it moves…to 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 to The Stranger for 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 Camus’s classic novel, The Stranger—or more precisely the 'majestically nonchalant' murder of an Arab at the heart of it—and 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 Algeria’s brutal war of independence." —The International New York Times"With The 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, The Meursault Investigation is 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 Investigation is a subversive retelling of Albert Camus’s The 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 Daoud’s 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 Investigation is 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 recounts–and challenges–not 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’ [The Stranger] from the point of view of the dead Arab’s brother...The Meursault Investigation invokes the language, images and plot of The Stranger and adapts them to the Algerian context...Mr. Daoud’s 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 "Quirky—and compelling—it 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 Stranger has become the springboard for another novel that serves as both homage and rebuke to Camus’ masterpiece…It is a brilliant, infinitely rich tour de force of the imagination that never mentions Camus by name but gives Meursault’s victim not only a name–Musa–but a history, a family and a would-be future…Its originality of vision carries the book a long way toward mastery of its form…The Meursault Investigation stirs our imagination, showing that literary classics are never finished." —The Wichita Eagle“Humor erupts in The Meursault Investigation every time there is tragedy, and this recipe for the Algerian absurd gives Daoud’s book its literary sting…For 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"Camus’s The Stranger is vividly reimagined in Daoud’s intensely atmospheric novel...readers will be captivated." —Publishers Weekly (Starred review)"The nameless Arab victim of Albert Camus's The Stranger receives a biography and a name in this thoughtful, 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 unexpected depth to the restorative nature of the text, which enthralls the readers all the more, especially when they are familiar with Albert Camus’s The Stranger. It is a wonderful novel and I enjoyed reading it.” —Nuruddin Farah, award-winning author of Hiding in Plain Sight “A superb novel…In the future, The Stranger and The Meursault Investigation will be read side by side.” —Le Monde des livres “Very beautiful writing, original, located between suppressed anger and bursts of elation.” —Les Echos “A breathtaking and effectively realized novel. The Stranger becomes a palindrome… The Meursault Investigation approaches the incredible, in that it reverses the perspective and point of view not without an emphatic ferociousness, all while playing with the prose and perspective of The Stranger.” —La Croix “A remarkable homage to its model.” —Le Nouvel observateur “An intense and surprising story.” —La Montagne
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.
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.
Where to Download The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
Most helpful customer reviews
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful. Much, much more to it than a simple response to THE STRANGER. By Lorraine Berry To only see this book as a response to THE STRANGER is to short change this novel. Daoud is, of course, making an argument that the nameless Arab killed in THE STRANGER was a real person. His narrator tells us the story of his brother who was the victim of happenstance when he encountered Meursault on that beach. But that discussion only takes up a portion of this book, which is why it deserves to be read in its own right. You could read this book without ever reading THE STRANGER as long as you understood that the victim could be any victim of random violence. Isn't this what anyone who had lost a family member to such a crime would want? To give the victim a name, a character, a presence?One could imagine what Daoud has done without reading the book if this is all that there was to it. But Daoud takes us on his own journey through the existentialist dilemma. No longer is a man caught between the absurd and the desire for meaning. In modern Algeria, a man is caught between the forces of theocracy and the desire for meaning. Rather than an exploration of how one defines oneself against a pitiless nothingness, Daoud is asking how a person defines him/herself against a pitiless system full of meaning, in which the meaning brooks no questioning of its authority, no questioning of the tenets it sets forth of how one should live. And in that respect, ALL fundamentalist religions act in this way toward those they seek to control. So, if speaking out against the theocrats brings with it the danger of death, what are the circumstances that require a human being to take that risk?This book deserves to be read on its own merits, free of the obvious comparison to the text that it nominally challenges. Its questions about life in an age where God has once again assumed center stage, and where God's interpreters have established themselves as those whose opinions are the only ones that count, are as important today as the questions that Camus raised in his era.
50 of 56 people found the following review helpful. "The Stranger" from an Arab point of view By Wally Wood Albert Camus's "The Stranger" (in the Matthew Ward translation) begins: "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe. I don't know."Kamel Daoud's "The Meursault Investigation" (in John Cullen's translation) begins: "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."Daoud is an Algerian journalist based in Oran, where he writes for Algeria's third-largest French-language newspaper. His novel is a tour-de-force, has won a number of prizes, is being translated around the world, and will be the basis of a 2017 film.Meursault is the name of Camus's narrator, a pied noir who seems to be without ambition, motivation, or inner life. When his boss in Algiers offers a bigger job, an opportunity to live in Paris and travel, he turns him down. "I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn't dissatisfied with mine her at all." That evening when Marie, the woman with whom he's been having sex, asks if he wants to marry her, "I said it didn't make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to." In the middle of the book, almost carelessly, Meursault shoots an anonymous Arab on the beach, then fires four more bullets into his body. The Arab is a stranger, and Meursault feels no more remorse for the killing than love for Marie or enthusiasm for his job.Daoud's brilliant idea was to tell the story of the murder from the point of view of the dead Arab's brother, who was a child at the time. He's now an old man, sitting in an Oran bar, talking to an unidentified and silent interlocutor, hashing and rehashing the murder. He gives the victim a name, Musa, and talks about the effect on himself and his mother, his anger at the unnamed author who wrote a book about Meursault, colonialism, his involvement (or not) in the Algerian revolution, his own murder of a pied noir, his failed relationship with a woman. I believe a case could be made that Daoud's narrator is a mirror image of Meursault. Except that this narrator is more engaged:"I squeezed the trigger and fired twice. Two bullets. On in the belly, and the other in the necs. That makes seven all told, I thought at once, absurdly. (But the first five, the ones that killed Musa, had been fired twenty years earlier . . .)"He, like Meursault, has interesting observations about life: "To tell the truth, love is a heavenly beast that scares the hell out of me. I watch it devour people, two by two; it fascinates them with the lure of eternity, shuts them up in a sort of cocoon, lifts them up to heaven, and then drops their carcasses back to earth like peels. Have you seen what becomes of people when they split up? They're scratches on a closed door."One does not have to have read "The Stranger" to be fascinated and engaged by Daoud's narrator but reading it, then "The Meursault Investigation" can make the experiences seriously richer. I was skeptical about an unknown writer taking off on the Nobel Prize-winning Camus, but Kamel Daoud's novel, while offering its own rewards, can stand with Camus's.
38 of 44 people found the following review helpful. To enjoy this book / Read or re-read The Stranger / Both are worth your time By S. Goldstein This is an excellent novel that, despite its brevity, packs quite a punch. It would be very difficult to appreciate The Meursault Investigation without having read The Stranger, if you are planning on reading this book do yourself a favor and read The Stranger. If you haven't read The Stranger, you can easily do so in a lesiurely afternoon at a coffee shop. And if you haven't read The Stranger since High School, read it again. It is very unlikely that you appreciated it in High School.The Meursault Investigation is the story (as told by Daoud) of one of the characters from Camus' book. Without giving anything away from either book, this character had only a brief scene in The Stranger, but was the hinge-point of that novel. Daoud takes one of the seminal works of 20th Century literature and gives us a plausible and moving backstory on one of the characters - quite a unique feat. The writing style (like with The Stranger) is easy to follow, and the story is straight-forward.Those who appreciate fiction cannot deny the importance and influence of The Stranger, and The Meursault Investigation would be of interest to anyone who read Camus. There are many books that center on characters from the Canon, and many that fail either because they don't match the mood of what the original work they are springing from or because the writing isn't even close to the writing of the original author. The Meursault Investigation is one that succeeds. And if you don't like it (and you read The Stranger), then I will send you a piece of cheese pizza and a diet coke.
See all 146 customer reviews...
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud PDF
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud iBooks
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud ePub
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud rtf
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud AZW
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud Kindle
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
The Meursault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
