Outsider (Literature)

Born in Leicester, he graduated from the Gateway School in Leicester. After serving in the Royal Air Force from 1949 to 1950, he worked in Paris and Strasbourg. From 1951 to 1953, he worked as a labourer in London and studied at the British Museum. He made his sudden appearance in the literary world with The Outsider (1956), which examined the existence of existentialists in bourgeois society from the inside. After this, he published many novels, thrillers, mysteries, and science fiction, such as "Festival in the Dark" (1960) and "The Glass Cage" (1966), but his forte was his philosophical views on life, such as "Religion and the Rebel" (1957), "The Age of Defeat" (1959), and "Beyond the Outsider" (1965), as well as critiques showing "religious" interests, such as "Poetry and Mysticism" (1970) and "The Occult" (1971). In contrast to the pessimistic existentialism of continental Europe, his basic stance was a neo-existentialism that affirms life and seeks to elevate human consciousness.

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Outsider (Literature)" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…レスターに生まれ，土地の高校ゲートウェー･スクールを卒業後，1949‐50年まで空軍に勤務したのち，パリやストラスブールで職を転々とした。51‐53年までロンドンで労働者の生活をしながら大英博物館で独学，ブルジョア社会における実存主義者のあり方をその内側から論じた《アウトサイダー》(1956)で一躍文壇に登場。この後《闇の中の祝祭》(1960)，《ガラスの檻》(1966)など数多くの小説，スリラー，ミステリー，SFも発表しているが，彼の本領はあくまで《宗教と反抗人》(1957)，《敗北の時代》(1959)，《アウトサイダーを超えて》(1965)といった哲学的人生論や，《詩と神秘主義》(1970)，《オカルト》(1971)といった〈宗教的〉関心を示す評論にあり，ヨーロッパ大陸のペシミスティックな実存主義に対して，生命肯定，人間意識の高揚を求める新実存主義がその基本的な姿勢である。…

※「《アウトサイダー》（文学）」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

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