François Ozon’s handling of classic novel draws both praise and criticism, including from the author’s daughter
More than 80 years after it was published, Albert Camus’s L’Étranger remains one of the most widely read and fiercely contested French books in the world.
Until now, few attempts have been made to adapt the novel, published in English as The Outsider, for television or cinema: it is considered problematic and divisive for its portrayal of France’s colonisation of Algeria.
The culture website Cult News wrote: “Adapting Albert Camus’ L’Étranger for the cinema is rather like climbing the Himalayas.”
The French director François Ozon has attempted to rise to the challenge with a black-and-white adaptation of the 1942 novel that has revived the polemic over what Camus said – or failed to say – about French Algeria, which ended in 1962 after a war of independence.
