Translating Camus
“Aujourd'hui maman est morte”. This sentence is one of the most famous in French literature, coming from the opening line of the novel L'étranger by Albert Camus. With five English translations of the book, the one word that has kept translators debating as to how it should be interpreted in English is Maman. Four of these translations have used Mother, whilst the version by Matthew Ward has kept the original Maman. So how has one word caused such a stir and what are the limitations with the English equivalents?
The translation of this famous sentence seems simple enough, literally meaning: “Today mother has died”. But the debate on how to accurately convey the sentiment the main character, Meursault, feels towards his mother opens up the challenges of translation. Does such a word exist in English to convey the nuance found in the original French?
Whilst Mother has been used by most of the translators, including in Sandra Smith's version, the word’s connotations are much more formal and distant than Maman would be. The option of Mummy falls down as it's too juvenile and doesn’t carry the serious weight Maman does.
Mum initially feels like an obvious choice that falls between Mother’s seriousness and Mummy’s childishness, but it has never been used by a major publisher due to its colloquialism, and also possibly because it was far less common in the English language in the mid-twentieth century when these translations were being published. Furthermore, the single-syllabled word sounds much more blunt than Maman’s soft two-syllable drag.
Sandra Smith's translation uses Mama for the whole novel except the opening line where she opts for Mother, pointing towards Meursault’s controverted feelings of intimacy despite his cold disposition. In Matthew Ward's 1988 translation, he decides to simply keep the word “Maman” in the famous first sentence. Whilst this solution seems far less controversial and loyal to Camus, it arguably conveys nothing of the nuanced meaning behind this word to an English-speaking reader.
Ultimately, the art of translation always leaves space for interpretation and subtle differences in meaning. Even the novel’s title is slightly lost in translation, with it known as The Outsider in Britain and The Stranger in the United States. Whilst they both technically align with the original title, they carry distinct undertones; the former evokes how Meursault is perceived by society, whereas the latter emphasises how he feels like he doesn’t belong. Both the title itself and 'maman' point to the cultural and historical weight that words carry and the wonderful richness of language.