L’Etranger by Albert Camus is one of the defining novels of the twentieth century. It opens with the now legendary words, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know”, uttered by its nihilistic and taciturn protagonist, Meursault. The aimless French-Algerian youth later finds himself on a beach, armed with a pistol. Dazed and disorientated by the sun and the sea, he shoots dead an Arab.We never know the name of the Arab. The two never exchange a word. We never hear an Arab voice in the novel, not even during Meursault’s trial. Arabs are rendered merely a lurking, mute menace. It is this silence that Kamel Daoud seeks to redress and invert in The Meursault Investigation, a retelling of the story from the point of view of the slain Arab’s brother