This study sheds light on the concept of in-betweenness as a site of cultural hybridity and identity crisis in Albert Camus’s The Stranger (1942) and Ali Bader’s The Tobacco Keeper (2008). The paper conducts a comparative analysis based on existentialist, postcolonial, and trauma theory, investigating how both authors depict alienation as a fundamental aspect of contemporary consciousness. Camus's Meursault embodies existential indifference in the colonial environment of French Algeria, illustrating the moral folly of empire and the conflict between authenticity and complicity.
In contrast, Bader's Raheel lives in a postcolonial world of fragmentation, where identity is shaped by political unrest and historical tragedy. This research illustrates Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the “unhomely,” Frantz Fanon’s psychology of colonial alienation, and Cathy Caruth’s trauma theory, showing that both characters exist in hybrid places where belonging is unavailable, yet meaning is constantly contested. Ultimately, the study concludes that in both colonial and postcolonial contexts, in-betweenness is not only a condition of estrangement but a crucial metaphor for the modern human struggle to establish identity amid historical dislocation