Balance between accuracy and contextual meaning an ongoing debate among literary translators

Recently, a debate rose in the literary world over the Korean translation of the novel “The Stranger” by French writer Albert Camus.

What triggered the debate was the claim by the publishing company Saeum that the original Korean translation had many translation errors. The publisher even argued that “‘The Stranger’ we’ve read so far is not Camus’ original.”

The claim instantly drew the attention of readers, with 4,700 copies of the new version sold in just two weeks, according to Saeum. The book, released in March, now ranks ninth on Kyobo Books’ best-seller list for novels.

The new Korean version of “The Stranger” led the debate, with 58 translation errors claimed to have been made by the original translator, a respected professor of French literature in Korea.

The debate intensified among readers, and especially between publishers. Saeum made sentence-to-sentence comparisons between the first translation and the new one, as well as between the original French novel and different English translations to defend their claims.

Minumsa, the initial publisher of the Korean version, said the first translation was not wrong, but a different interpretation.

“The first Korean version of ‘The Stranger’ is misunderstood as being wrong. A wrong translation is saying 3 o’clock instead of 4 o’clock. The first version just uses different expressions,” said the official, who wished to remain anonymous. More.

See: The Korea Herald

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