Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Translated by Pablo Montoya: A Translation for Latin American Readers?

Abstract

This study is part of a research project on the current state of literary translation in Colombia from a linguistic and, more specifically, a lexical point of view. Universal literature works translated to peninsular Spanish that began to circulate across Latin America from the 60s oftentimes left some perception of unnaturalness in readers, which can be attributed to some diatopic variations. This led to a number of editorial efforts to have those works retranslated by Latin American translators.  In order to contrast peninsular translations with those carried out in Colombia, this paper examines the case of two translations of French writer Camus’ L'étranger (1942) —one by Colombian writer and lecturer Pablo Montoya, published in 2013, the other by the Spanish poet José Ángel-Valente appeared in 2001. The comparison between these translations allows us to show both morphosyntactic and lexical differences, that we tried to characterize from a diatopic point of view through specialized books, through the crea search engine and through a survey of Spanish-speaking informants. The analysis led us to conclude that Montoya’s translation, although addressed to a Colombian audience, contains few specifically Colombian diatopic marks and is rooted instead in Latin American space and culture, so it could be a read smoothly by other American readers.