The Stranger is a book that I’ve loved since the first time I read it. I was in high school, and we’d just finished reading Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God in my English class. Though I enjoyed Hurston’s work immensely, it had been difficult to work through at times. No matter, the clean, simple prose of Camus was a welcome change of pace.
Shortly after reading––and falling in love with––The Stranger I learned that my French teacher had extra copies of L’Étranger, complete with a French-English vocabulary guide, in the closet of her classroom. I was excited. At that point, I was the most confident in my French reading ability than I’d ever been before. At the time, reading L’Étranger was exhilarating. However, looking back, I realized that I paid no attention to the idea of translation. I’d assumed that what I read in class––Matthew Ward’s translation in the aesthetically pleasing black and white cover––had been equal to the original. Reading the work in French was simply a formality, something that I had to do as a good French student.
The next time I encountered L’Étranger, in both English and French, was in my sophomore year at Amherst. I was taking Professor Katsaros’ contemporary French translation class. In class, we examined each of the four English translations of L’Étranger. I soon discovered that the English version I’d read was one of many and that the use of “maman” word theFrench maman––a choice that I loved––was only one option.
When approaching my translation, I tried to keep in mind everything I learned in “Translating Contemporary French” and “Translating the Classics.” All the translations I’d examined were distinct; how did I want mine to be? It seemed natural to choose a text so close to my heart. It also made the translation process that much harder. Having deep respect for the text, I felt it hard to take liberties. I wanted to stay as close to the text as possible.
I also felt this in my initial planning for the translation project. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is, like The Stranger, one of my favorite books. Working with Lolita in translation seemed like a no-brainer. I played with the idea of translating a particularly challenging passage, one bursting with assonance and alliteration, into French. I soon realized, after gathering previous French translations and a number of critical sources, that I couldn’t carry on with the project. As a non-native French speaker, I didn’t feel comfortable translating into French. Just as I am a non-native Spanish speaker, I could not feel completely confident translating into a language other than English. I realized that I rely enough on dictionaries, thesauri, and endless revision just when translating into my mother tongue. I couldn’t see my translation into French being better than the two that came before it. When it comes to translation, I think it’s best to be as comfortable as possible with the language you translate into. Maybe as I become more familiar with the subtleties of French and Spanish, I’ll experiment with translating English works into other languages. For now, I’ll stick with what I know best.