In the World Literature category, I'm going to pick French Algerian novelist Albert Camus' The Stranger (or The Outsider, depending on translation). (Given that Camus was born, raised, and educated in Algiers, was a passionate Algerian nationalist, and wrote this in part while in France and in part while in Algiers, I think it fits the World Lit category, though the book is part european philosophical novel, as well as being part colonial literature.)
Set in Algiers, this story follows Meursault, a man who seems emotionally detached from those around him to an extreme degree. When he murders the friend of the brother of an ex-girlfriend of a friend of his, the authorities are outraged at this seeming emotional detachment, or remorselessness. In the end he is sentenced to death, but the time for introspection allows him to gain an understanding of the absoluteness of death and thus the meaninglessness of life.
I find it a sort of sad novel in that in a lot of ways, Meursault's perspective that he reaches by the end of the novel makes a lot of sense, but despite its rationality, it's impossible to actually live like Meursault. The best we can do is be aware of how often we're guilty of these absurd associations that Meursault sees around him. It's often lumped into the existentialist category, but in some ways the viewpoint that Camus presents is very different: life and action have no meaning to the individual leading them; instead, it is society that attempts to attach meaning to them.
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