Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation

What if your brother was killed. Shot on the beach on a searing hot day. What if this happened to you when you were still a boy in a single parent family without other siblings.

The brother-formed-gap might become the black hole around which everyone and everything in your life revolves.

And then to find out that the murderer has written a novel in which you get to know his soul ‘like you were an angel’ but in which your brother’s name is not even mentioned. Musa Uld el-Assas, your brother, reduced to a stage prop called ‘The Arab’.

“The whole world knew the murderer, his face, his look, his portrait, and even his clothes, except the two of us! The Arab’s mother and her son [...] Two poor, pitiful natives who had read nothing and put up with everything. Like donkeys.”

Kamel Daoud answered Camus brilliantly, I think. Mirroring the story of Meursault, not too forced, not too loose and touching the mirror at several points.

This being said, a feminist rewrite would be great.

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