Exiles, Outcasts, Strangers

Mary Jo Muratore holds the Catherine Paine Middlebush Chair of the Humanities at the University of Missouri, USA. She is the author of four books, including Mimesis and Metatextuality in the Neo-Classical Text (1994), which was nominated for the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize in French Studies, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America.

• Introduction; 1. Contagions of Conformity in Camus' L'Etranger; 2. The Art of Betrayal in Sabato's El tunel; 3. Poeticizing Vice: Genet's Querelle de Brest; 4. In the Shadows of Significance: The Dissolution of Character in Wright's The Outsider; 5. The Exemplum of Empathy in Andre Langevin's Poussiere sur la ville.

"The place of the margins in literary discourse stands prominently as a fulcrum of inquiry among twentieth-century writers and contemporary literary scholars. Twentieth-century prose seeks explicitly to forge and sustain a fundamental distance from the ‘center,' which appears both as anathema to contemporary writers and which does not fairly bespeak the predominant vision of l'humaine condition. Within such a frame, Dr. Muratore's masterful study of otherness brings stunning insights and new dimensions to the complex, forever unresolved problematic of alienation, marginalization and apartness. The critic illuminates the work of nine post-World War II novelists—each, by dint of circumstance or destiny, culturally apart, each singularly estranged, and, more compellingly, each the creator of a fictionalized universe in which the protagonist confronts the essence of unhinged lost-ness. Muratore thus offers sophisticated and far-reaching analyses and accompanies the reader on an intriguing series of journeys, each borne of ‘difference,' yet powerfully unified. The literary dances are highly compelling as the book explores that muted but ever-present part of our human prejudice—otherness—from the perspectives of those on the fringes. Muratore explores the phenomenon with forensic expertise and vigor of thought. Clearly, every reader can relate to the face in the mirror staring back through the haze of self-recognition and the ignominy of attempting to conjure up a panacea for an intractable matter." -- Bethel Erastus-Obilo, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Research, University of Atlanta, USA