by Albert Camus (1942)

Set in French Algeria, this absurdist novel revolves around the murder trial of its principal character, known only as Meursault. When Meursault is imprisoned for the murder in the desert of an unnamed Arab man, his lack of emotion is interpreted as a lack of remorse and he is condemned to the guillotine. But facing death, he finds himself oddly comforted by the simple fact of his own life.

Note: Camus, a former journalist and French resistance fighter, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.