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Article: Return of `The Stranger' // Camus' classic reborn in new American translation
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- February 28, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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The Stranger By Albert Camus. In a new American translation by
Matthew Ward. Knopf. $15.95.
When The Stranger appeared in 1946, hundreds of thousands of
students and intellectuals were just back from a war, and the novel
exploded upon us, confirming a vague sense that a world had ended.
It was like a leap into the unknown, a glimpse of a chaotic future.
It was "existential": What did that mean? And "absurd"? (For that
matter, how did one pronounce "Camus"?) And it was powerful. Not
quite stark; not quite pure of line; but powerful. The translation
was obviously by an Englishman (Stuart Gilbert), and was in spots
oddly conversational, prosy and phrasy. But few of us read French,
and the ...