The Stranger (Albert Camus)
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50 free The Stranger (Albert Camus) trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Albert Camus's The Stranger is a short novel that turns up on reading lists around the world and has been argued over since 1942. Its narrator, Meursault, buries his mother, drifts through a few hot weeks in Algiers, and then does something on a beach that he never fully explains. Readers still disagree about what kind of man he is. The questions cover Part One closely: the old people's home, the neighbours on Meursault's staircase, Marie, Raymond and the outing that ends the first half. Others move to Part Two, with the investigation, the courtroom and the final night in the cell. Famous passages are asked about by describing them, not by quoting them. There are also questions on Camus himself, on how the novel reached English readers, and on the films, songs and books it has inspired. The quiz suits students checking their reading before a class test, book clubs, and anyone who read the novel years ago and wants to see what stuck.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which English rock band's debut single, Killing an Arab, is based on Albert Camus's The Stranger?
The Cure
The Cure put it out in 1978, and the title caused such trouble that Robert Smith later said he wished he had called the song Standing on the Beach.
Q 02How did Albert Camus, author of The Stranger, die near the French town of Sens in January 1960?
A car crash
A car crash killed him instantly at 46, in the passenger seat of his publisher's Facel Vega. The unfinished manuscript of The First Man was found in the wreckage.
Q 03Which football position did The Stranger's author Albert Camus play for a junior team in Algiers?
Goalkeeper
Goalkeeper was his position for Racing Universitaire d'Alger's juniors from 1928 to 1930. Tuberculosis, diagnosed when he was 17, ended any hopes of a football career.
Q 04What does Meursault say drove him to shoot a man on the beach in The Stranger, rather than revenge?
The sun
The sun is all he can offer when the judge asks for a motive. He means the heat and the glare off the blade that dazed him, but the court hears a man without remorse.
Q 05By what method is Meursault sentenced to die for murder at the end of his trial in The Stranger?
The guillotine
The guillotine is his sentence, to be carried out in public, although his own lawyer had told him the punishment would probably be light.
Q 06Which honour did Albert Camus receive in 1957, fifteen years after The Stranger was published?
The Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize in Literature went to Camus at 44, and he dedicated his acceptance speech to Louis Germain, the schoolteacher who had helped him win a scholarship.
Q 07After his first shot kills the man on the beach in The Stranger, what does Meursault do next?
Fires four more shots
He fires four more shots into the motionless body after a pause. That pause is the one detail of the crime the examining magistrate cannot get past.
Q 08In the closing lines of The Stranger, what does Meursault hope to find at his execution?
A large, hateful crowd
A large, hateful crowd is his final wish, made just after he decides that he has been happy and still is. An outburst at a visitor had emptied him of hope.
Q 09Under which title has Camus's The Stranger been sold in Britain since its first English edition?
The Outsider
The Outsider was the London publisher's choice, partly because a Polish novel had just appeared there as The Stranger. The American edition was already typeset, so both titles stuck.
Q 10Meursault's employer in The Stranger offers him a post at a new branch office in which city?
Paris
Paris leaves him unmoved, and his shrug angers a boss who expected ambition. Meursault recalls having had ambitions as a student, before deciding none of it mattered.
Q 11How does news of his mother's death in a country home first reach Meursault in The Stranger?
A telegram
A telegram from the home brings the news, and his first concern is working out which day she actually died. He then asks his boss for two days' leave.
Q 12In which Algerian town does Meursault's mother die in an old people's home in The Stranger?
Marengo
Marengo lies outside Algiers, and Meursault catches the two o'clock bus there and sleeps for nearly the whole trip. The vigil and the funeral walk fill the opening chapter.
Q 13At the old people's home in The Stranger, which offer about his mother does Meursault turn down?
To view the body
Q 21What job does Raymond Sintès claim to do in The Stranger, though neighbours take him for a pimp?
Warehouse guard
Warehouse guard is his stock reply when anyone asks. Over dinner he asks Meursault to be his friend, then tells of beating the mistress he suspects of cheating.
Q 22What does Raymond ask Meursault to write for him over dinner early in The Stranger?
A letter to his mistress
A letter to his mistress is meant to lure her back so that Raymond can humiliate her and throw her out. Meursault agrees, saying he does not mind.
Q 23What does the policeman called to Raymond's flat in The Stranger do on hearing he beat a woman?
Slaps him in the face
To view the body is an offer he declines twice, first from the caretaker and then from the director. The director brings it up at the trial, along with the lack of tears.
Q 14Which drink does Meursault accept from the caretaker at the vigil by the coffin in The Stranger?
Coffee
Coffee, taken with milk, becomes evidence against him: the prosecutor calls him a disloyal son for not refusing it at his mother's side.
Q 15Which basic fact about his mother does Meursault fail to give the undertaker's man in The Stranger?
Her exact age
Her exact age is something he does not know, so he answers vaguely during the procession. The detail resurfaces at his trial as proof of a cold son.
Q 16Which old man, teased as the fiancé of Meursault's mother, lags behind her funeral in The Stranger?
Thomas Pérez
Thomas Pérez was her inseparable companion and the only resident of the home allowed to attend. He takes shortcuts to keep up, then faints in the heat.
Q 17What job did Marie Cardona once hold at the office where Meursault works in The Stranger?
Typist
Typist is how he remembers her, a former colleague he had been attracted to. They meet again swimming the day after the funeral, and she spends that night with him.
Q 18Which French comic stars in the film Meursault and Marie see on their first date in The Stranger?
Fernandel
Fernandel was one of France's top comic actors, which is the point: the prosecutor tells the jury that Meursault went to laugh at a comedy the day after burying his mother.
Q 19How does Meursault spend the Sunday afternoon after Marie's first night at his flat in The Stranger?
Watching the street below
Watching the street below from his balcony takes up the whole afternoon, with cigarettes and food to hand. By evening he concludes that, mother buried or not, nothing has changed.
Q 20Which elderly neighbour in The Stranger curses and beats the mangy dog he walks twice a day?
Salamano
Salamano has come to look like his dog, whose mange has left it as scabby as its master. When the animal runs away, Meursault hears the old man crying at night.
The officer slaps him in the face and orders him to wait at home for a summons. Raymond then asks Meursault to tell the police that the woman had been unfaithful.
Q 24How does Meursault answer in The Stranger when Marie asks whether he wants to marry her?
It makes no difference
It makes no difference to him, he says, and he will marry her if she wants. She finds him peculiar and decides she wants to marry him all the same.
Q 25In The Stranger, what does the odd woman at Céleste's restaurant tick off in a magazine?
Radio programmes
Radio programmes are what she marks so obsessively that Meursault follows her outside. She turns up again among the spectators at his trial.
Q 26Why did Meursault's elderly neighbour in The Stranger first get the dog he now mistreats?
His wife had died
His wife had died, and the dog was meant to ease a widower's loneliness. When it goes missing he refuses to replace it, saying he is used to the old one.
Q 27What does Meursault take from Raymond on the beach in The Stranger to stop him acting rashly?
A revolver
A revolver changes hands when Meursault talks Raymond out of shooting two men resting by a spring. It is in his pocket when he walks back there alone.
Q 28After Meursault testifies for him to the police in The Stranger, how does Raymond's case end?
With a warning
With a warning is all it costs Raymond, once Meursault has stated that the woman was unfaithful. The prosecutor later throws that favour back at Meursault.
Q 29What does the magistrate wave at Meursault in The Stranger while asking if he believes in God?
A crucifix
A crucifix is waved in his face by a magistrate who says his own life would be meaningless without God. When Meursault says no, the man takes to calling him the Antichrist.
Q 30Who visits Meursault's cell against his wishes late in The Stranger and is seized in a rage?
The prison chaplain
The prison chaplain insists that every condemned man turns to God in the end. Meursault grabs him and shouts that death is the only certainty, and the outburst leaves him calm.