Looking for the Stranger: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic with Author Alice Kaplan

LITCHFIELD, Conn. - Dec. 20, 2016 - PRLog -- Albert Camus's L'Etranger has been a best-seller for so long that we forget it was ever anything else. But literary classics are made, not born: though The Stranger was a book very few readers understood or appreciated when it was published in 1942, it became a household name - a regular on lists of the great books of the 20th century.

Alice Kaplan delved into publishers' archives to uncover a key episode in L'Etranger's career:  the first translation of the French novel into English, in the United States and in England, four years after its publication in 1946, when the war in Europe had been over for only a year. This is a tale of two cities, involving an author, his publishers, his translator, and his readers and reviewers. Knowledge of French is welcome but absolutely not required!

Alice Kaplan, John M. Musser Professor of French at Yale University, is a specialist of 20th century France. She works at the intersection of literature and history, using a method that allies archival research with textual analysis. A literary translator, Kaplan serves on the newly created advisory board of the National Book Foundation's study of the state of translation in the United States. She is a former Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the French Légion d'Honneur as well the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History for The Collaborator and the Henry Adams Prize for The Interpreter.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the event. The Hickory Stick Bookshop will provide books for signing and for purchase. All Oliver Wolcott Library events are free and open to the public. Space is limited. Registration is required and can be done by calling 860-567-8030 or logging onto http://www.owlibrary.org and clicking on Programs/Adult Programs.