IOP Journal 4

So at the beginning of the Ward translation, we are offered a translator's note in which Ward says the following:

“Camus acknowledged employing an “American method” in writing The Stranger, in the first half of the book in particular: the short, precise sentences; the depiction of a character ostensibly without consciousness; and, in places, the “tough guy” tone. [...] There is some irony then in the fact that for forty years the only translation available to American audience should be Stuart Gilbert’s “Britannic” rendering. [...] As all translators do, Gilbert gave the novel a consistency and voice all his own. A certain paraphrastic earnestness might be a way of describing his effort to make the text intelligible, to help the English-speaking reader understand what Camus meant.” (v-vi)

Ward criticizes Gilbert's version because it does not coincide with the stated intent of the author. Gilbert's version was published in 1946, 42 years before Ward's. This creates not only different translations due to different authors, but completely different viewpoints. The book was originally published in 1942, smack-dab in the middle of WWII. It was Camus's first published novel and arguably his most famous and finest. Gilbert published his translation the year after WWII ended. Gilbert was British and his version is called "Brittanic" In Ward's note. He uses some words uncommon to American English. Still, Camus' absurdist and possibly existensialist beliefs drew him to be influenced by writers who created the "American" style of writing most commonly seen in novel like The Catcher In The Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Holden's detached and uncaring voice is incredibly similar to Meursault's. In fact, when I first started reading The Stranger, I immediately pointed out in a journal entry that the writing style reminded me of The Catcher In The Rye.