The obvious next step from The Stranger would be to read Camus's other 1942 work, The Myth of Sisyphus. There, through a collection of essays, he explains his position on the absurd at the time of writing The Stranger.

Camus was regarded as the conscience of occupied France for his writings in Combat. For that paper he wrote such editorials as Neither Victims Nor Executioners (printed in the fall of 1946 and reprinted in 1968 by Dwight Macdonald). This piece argued the logical basis of an anti-war stance consistent with his own theories. He argued that murder is never legitimate, silence between those in disagreement is intolerable, and fear must be understood. In short, he defined a modest position "free of messianism and disencumbered of nostalgia for an earthly paradise."

Camus's 1947 novel, The Plague, is seen by many to be a parable about...