Albert Camus in Catalan

PalmThe first work by Albert Camus translated into Catalan is the novel The plague (Vergara, 1962), originally published in France by Gallimard in 1947. It appeared in 1962, fifteen years after its French publication, in a translation by Joan Fuster, as part of Vergara's 'Isard' paperback collection. Joan Fuster's role was key in introducing and disseminating Camus's thought to Catalan-speaking readers. The translation of the novel The plague The Catalan translation was commissioned by his editor and personal friend Josep Maria Boix, promoter of the 'Isard' collection. Previously, Fuster had attempted to translate the drama into Catalan. The respectful whore Fuster attempted a translation of Sartre's work on his own, just six years after its original publication—a very short time considering the opacity and cultural isolation imposed by the Franco regime. Unfortunately, it failed due to the text's difficulty and limitations. This failed attempt already reveals a clear desire to normalize and Europeanize Catalan culture, so damaged by Francoist prohibition, persecution, and censorship. Fuster's open-minded and committed approach is reflected in his translations of four other works by Camus during the 1960s: The Stranger (Proa, 1967), translated alone; The myth of Sisyphus (1965), the foundational essay of absurdism or philosophy of the absurd; the philosophical treatise The rebel man (1966) and the six stories grouped under the title of Exile and the Kingdom (1967), in collaboration with Josep Palàcios. It can be said that Fuster, with his literary career, further enhanced the prestige of the translated works.

In Fuster's shadow is another figure equally committed to the early dissemination of Camus's work in Catalonia, the translator Bonaventura Vallespinosa, who in the 1960s translated the novel The fall (Vergara, 1964). Also the play The righteous (1960), unpublished, of which the 61-page typed manuscript with handwritten annotations is preserved, which uses the Catalan experimental theater company (TEC) as a reference in the 1964 performances. He also translates The myth of Sisyphus (1987), published within the collection of the Reus Reading Center, of which the Ateneo is a part.

Overcoming Francoist Censorship

Several factors explain why the aforementioned publishers overcame Francoist censorship and published Camus in Catalan. First, the writer's worldwide fame, which he acquired after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, worked in his favor. The second favorable factor was his opposition to the French left, along with his anti-communist stance. And third, his image as a moralist and humanist author.

Since then, Camus's works translated by Fuster and Palàcios have been reissued by various publishing houses, primarily those linked to Grup Edicions 62, such as La Bolsillo and Proa. Vergara, however, has followed a different path from its various beginnings and has diverged from its publications within the Penguin Random House conglomerate, which has shifted its focus towards self-help books, biographies, historical essays, and romance novels. Thus, for example, Edicions 62 has successively reissued The plague, in 1986, and more recently, in 2024, as part of the La Bolsillo series. It is a work that was widely read during the pandemic, given the similarities between the situation presented in the novel and the socio-health crisis caused by COVID-19, especially during the lockdown period, with a reinterpretation that goes beyond the author's original intentions, which were closely linked to anti-fascist denunciation.

Carpintero's version of The Myth of Sisyphus It has been reissued several times by Edicions 62 and its La Bolsillo imprint, most recently in 2024. Since 1989, Proa has reissued Fuster's translation of The StrangerThe 2022 edition is the most recent; while La Bolsillo has also reissued the Carpintero version of The Stranger in 2020, 2022, and 2024.

There are two other publishers involved in the reissue of Camus's translations from the 1960s: Edicions La Magrana and Editorial Empúries. La Granada reissued the version in 1986 and 1991. Exile and the Kingdom, by Fuster and Palácios and recovers in 1986 Vallespinosa's translation of The Fall Published in Vergara. With the publication in France in 1994 of Camus's posthumous work The first man Gallimard's interest was rekindled, and that same year the Empúries publishing house released Ramon Lladó's Catalan translation of this work for the first time, followed by a new version by Maria Bohigas in 2002.

The Raig Verd publishing house gave new impetus to Camus's work in Catalan, updating its existing translations with new versions. Thus, in January 2022, it published a new translation of The Fall by Anna Casassas. This Barcelona-based publisher had previously entrusted the same translator with revising and correcting Fuster i Palàcios' original translation of The rebel man (2021). Raig Verd's tireless work to recover Camus's work allows us to enjoy his own version in 2023. The first man and of The libertarian writings, previously unpublished in Catalan, thanks to Casassas's meticulous work.

Other stories translated into Catalan are Wedding (Moià, Raima, 1989), in translation by Júlia Cirera and Wedding – Summer (Ediciones 62, 1990), translated by Lluís Calderer. A representative selection of the chronicles that Camus wrote for the French resistance newspaper 'Combat' was published by La Llar del Llibre in 1986, under the title of The night of truth, in a version by Joan Valls.

The theater

Regarding Camus's plays, the work begun by Vallespinosa continued in 2000 with the first publication in Catalan of The Misunderstanding, from Edicions 62, in a translation by Lluís-Anton Baulenas, a few months after its premiere at the Tantarantana Theatre in Barcelona. Later, in 2006, the Teatre Lliure Foundation published Ferran Toutain's translation of the same text. In addition, there are two versions of the play CaligulaThe oldest edition, published by Edicions 62 and edited by Montserrat Ingla, dates from 1982 and was reissued in 1996; the most recent is the 2004 edition by Proa, edited by Esteve Miralles. Camus has attracted the interest of Mallorcan publishers due to his Menorcan ancestry on his mother's side. This motivation is precisely what gives rise to this study. Albert Camus and the Balearic Islands (Documenta Balear, 2014), coordinated by the journalist and historian Francesc M. Rotger, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth. The other publisher that has shown interest in Camus is Lleonard Muntaner with the publication for the first time in Catalan of his first essay, The reverse and the obverse (2021), translated jointly by Pol and Manuel Guerrero, with an epilogue by Marina Garcés. Muntaner has also edited the Letters to a German Friend (2019), translated by Míriam Cano and with a prologue by Xavier Antich.

The abundant texts by Camus available in Catalan cannot hide the fact that there are still unpublished works yet to be translated, such as the correspondence with María Casares and René Chair, the diary with personal thoughts, the articles on the Spanish Republic and his native Algeria, the speeches and lectures, and the play The State of Siege (1948)... This lack should encourage publishers to make new translations and reissue out-of-print works to make them available to novice readers.