Editing The Stranger (Camus novel) (section)

=== English translations ===
In 1946, the first English translation, by British author [[Stuart Gilbert]], was published, based on the first French edition.  For more than 30 years, Gilbert's version was the standard English translation.<ref name="DuPlessis1992">Du Plessis, Eric H., "The Restoration of Albert Camus' ''L'Etranger'' in English Translation". ''Revue de Littérature Comparée'' (Paris), '''66(2)''', pp. 205-213. (1 April 1992).</ref> Gilbert's choice of title, ''The Stranger'', was changed by publisher Hamish Hamilton to ''The Outsider'', because it considered it "more striking and appropriate" and because [[Maria Kuncewiczowa]]'s Polish-language novel ''[[Cudzoziemka]]'' had recently been published in London as ''The Stranger''.<ref name="Kaplan2016">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/14/camus-letranger-stranger-than-fiction-alice-kaplan|title=L'Étranger – stranger than fiction|last=Kaplan|first=Alice|date=14 October 2016|work=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=14 October 2016|location=London}}</ref> In the United States, Knopf had already typeset the manuscript using Gilbert's original title when informed of the name change and so disregarded it; the British–American difference in titles has persisted in subsequent editions.<ref name="Kaplan2016" />  Several scholars, including Helen Sebba,<ref>{{cite journal | jstor=1207725 | last=Sebba | first=Helen | title=Stuart Gilbert's Meursault: A Strange "Stranger" | journal=Contemporary Literature | volume=13 | issue=3 | pages=334–340 | date=Summer 1972| doi=10.2307/1207725 }}</ref> John E. Gale,<ref>{{cite journal | jstor=26279928 | last=Gale | first=John E | title=Does America Know ''The Stranger''? A Reappraisal of a Translation | journal=Modern Fiction Studies | volume=20 | issue=2 | pages=139–147 | date=Summer 1974}}</ref> and Eric Du Plessis,<ref name="DuPlessis1992"/> along with commentators such as James Campbell,<ref>{{cite news | title=The Pleasures and Perils of Creative Translation | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/books/review/the-pleasures-and-perils-of-creative-translation.html | work=The New York Times | author=James Campbell | date=9 June 2011 | access-date=4 January 2024}}</ref> have noted inaccuracies in the Stuart Gilbert translation and their resulting distortions of the tone of Camus' original French text in his English translation.

In 1982, the British publisher [[Hamish Hamilton]], which had issued Gilbert's translation, published a translation by Joseph Laredo, also as ''The Outsider.'' [[Penguin Books]] bought this version in 1983 for a paperback edition. 

In 1982, the American publisher [[University Press of America]] published a translation by Kate Griffith, titled ''The Stranger''.

In 1988, [[Vintage Books|Vintage]] published a version in the United States with a translation by American [[Matthew Ward (writer)|Matthew Ward]] under the standard American title of ''The Stranger.'' Camus was influenced by American literary style, and Ward's translation expresses American usage and adheres more closely to Camus' original prose and tone.<ref name="Americanized">{{cite news|last=Mitgang|first=Herbert|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/18/books/classic-french-novel-is-americanized.html|title=Classic French Novel is 'Americanized'|work=The New York Times|date=18 April 1988|access-date=9 September 2006}}</ref>

In 2012, a translation by Sandra Smith was published by [[Penguin Books|Penguin]] as ''The Outsider.''<ref>{{Cite journal |last = Messud |first = Claire |author-link = Claire Messud |year = 2014 |title = A New 'L'Étranger' |url = http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/05/camus-new-letranger/ |journal = [[The New York Review of Books]] |volume = 61 |number = 10 |access-date = 1 June 2014 }}</ref>

==== Difference between translations ====
A critical difference among these translations is the expression of emotion in the sentence towards the close of the novel: "I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe" in Gilbert's translation, versus Laredo's "I laid my heart open to the gentle indifference of the universe" (original French: {{lang|fr|la tendre indifférence du monde}}; literally, "the tender indifference of the world"). The Penguin Classics 2000 reprint of Laredo's translation has "gentle" changed to "benign". Smith's 2012 translation uses the literal translation, "tender", stating in her Translator's Note that using "benign" "fails to capture the paradoxical nuance of 'tender'".

The ending lines differ as well: Gilbert translates 'on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration', which contrasts with Laredo's and Smith's translation of 'greet me with cries of hatred'. This passage describes a scene that would serve as a foil to the prior 'indifference of the world'. In French, the phrase is {{lang|fr|cris de haine}}. Ward translates this as 'with cries of hate'. Gilbert juxtaposes 'execration' with 'execution'.

{{lang|fr|Aujourd'hui, Maman est morte}} is the opening sentence of the novel. English translations have rendered the first sentence as 'Mother died today', 'Maman died today', or a variant thereof. In 2012, Ryan Bloom argued that it should be translated as 'Today, Maman died'. He believes this better expresses the character of Meursault, as developed in the novel, as someone who 'lives for the moment', 'does not consciously dwell on the past', and 'does not worry about the future'.<ref name="bloom">{{cite news | url=http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/lost-in-translation-what-the-first-line-of-the-stranger-should-be | title=Lost in Translation: What the First Line of ''The Stranger'' Should Be | magazine=The New Yorker | author=Ryan Bloom | date=11 May 2012 | access-date=3 July 2016}}</ref>

==== List of English translations ====

* 1946, ''The Outsider'' (translated by [[Stuart Gilbert]]), London: [[Hamish Hamilton]]
* 1946, ''The Stranger'' (translated by Stuart Gilbert), New York: [[Alfred A. Knopf]]
* 1982, ''The Outsider'' (translated by Joseph Laredo), London: [[Hamish Hamilton]], {{ISBN|978-0-14-118250-6}}
* 1982, ''The Stranger'' (translated by Kate Griffith), Washington, D.C.: [[University Press of America]], {{ISBN|081912141X}}, {{ISBN|0819121428}}
* 1988, ''The Stranger'' (translated by [[Matthew Ward (writer)|Matthew Ward]]), New York: [[Alfred A. Knopf]], {{ISBN|0-394-53305-4}}. 
** Reissued in 1989 by Vintage New York: [[Vintage Books|Vintage]], {{ISBN|978-0-679-72020-1}}.<ref>The first sentence of the second paragraph of the 1988 edition is "The old people’s home is at Marengo, about fifty kilometers from Algiers". In the 1989 edition, "about fifty" is changed to "about eighty". The original French sentence reads, "L'asile de vieillards est à Marengo, à quatre-vingts kilomètres d'Alger".</ref>
* 2012, ''The Outsider'' (translated by Sandra Smith), London: [[Penguin Books|Penguin]], {{ISBN|978-0-14-138958-5}}