Abstract
The processes of discovering the other and confronting the heterogeneity of this foreignnessenclose a fundamental paradox: the emerging force of alienation and detachment is associated with the possibility of reappropriating the common space of an impetuous existence. Albert Camus’s Stranger (1942) represents the exemplary form of this impassive encounter,while Kamel Daoud’s counter-narrative, Meursault, contre-enquête (2013) deconstructs and reinvests this journey through a dislocation of perspective. Language, as a primary mechanism for articulating feelings, is the tool which, in the post-colonial context of Daoud’s text, belongs to the other and requires a complex process of reappropriation.
Using elements of Jacques Derrida’s analysis, this essay aims to examine the transformation of Meursault’s discourse into that of Haroun and his positioning in the Robinsonade paradigm.