A collection of six short stories, first published in French in 1957, set in places from Algeria to Paris and Brazil. Each follows an ordinary person, such as a teacher, an artist, a wife or a missionary, who feels cut off from others or from some hoped-for place of belonging.
The stories are spare, vivid and often tied to landscape, especially the sun and desert of North Africa. They explore solitude, solidarity, duty and the wish for a home in the world. They show a gentler and more varied side of Camus than his best-known novels.