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English translations from the French

The Libraire Gallimard first published the original French-language novel in 1942. British author Stuart Gilbert first translated L’Étranger to English in 1946; his work became established as the English translation for thirty-odd years. In 1982, the British publisher Hamish Hamilton published a second translation, by Joseph Laredo, that Penguin Books bought in 1983 and reprinted in the Penguin Classics line in 2000. In 1988, a third translation, by the American Matthew Ward, was published, by Random House Inc., in the Vintage International line of Vintage Books. Because Camus was influenced by the American literary style, the 1988 translation was Americanized.^[4]

The three translations differ much in tone; Gilbert's translation is formal, notable in the initiating sentence of the first chapter. The French original is: "Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. J'ai reçu un télégramme de l'asile: Mère décédée. Enterrement demain. Sentiments distingués. Cela ne veut rien dire. C'était peut-être hier"

• Gilbert's 1946 translation is: "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday."
• Laredo's 1982 translation is: "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know. I had a telegram from the home: 'Mother passed away. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely.' That doesn't mean anything. It may have been yesterday."
• Ward's 1988 translation is: "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours. That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday." [Maman is informal French for the informal English Mum/Mam/Mom; a strict translation of the opening line is "Today, mom died."]^[4]

The critical, literary difference of translation is in the accurate connotation of the original French emotion in the story's key sentence, i.e. "I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe" versus "I laid my heart open to the gentle indifference of the universe" (original French: la tendre indifférence du monde = literally, "the tender indifference of the world").

Translations of the title

In French, étranger can mean: foreign, overseas, unknown, extraneous, outsider, stranger, alien, unconnected, and irrelevant. Arguably, the title might be translated as The Foreigner, because Meursault, the anti-heroic protagonist is culturally foreign to Algeria; or as The Outsider, because Meursault feels alien to the Arab Muslim society in which he lives as a colonist, however it clearly is not just that he is an 'outsider' in this more literal sense but also of society as a whole. He does not understand the necessity to adhere to the stock gestures and emotions in everyday life, as is his downfall in the very end. As he is oblivious of the motifs he lives, he is unencumbered by any meaning exterior to his sensory experience, a character trait rendering him foreign to his contemporaries; thus, most English translations of the French title L’Étranger are rendered as The Stranger, and less frequently as The Outsider.