Camus’ first novel, L’Etranger, has been translated into English four times. In Stuart Gilbert’s 1946 domesticating version Meursault is verbose and less alienated than in the original. Joseph Laredo’s noticeably British 1982 version, is more colloquial and faithful to the letter, while Kate Griffith’s (1982) is unreliable. Poet Matthew Ward (1988) presents a more taciturn Meursault, rendering his alienation more apparent. The retranslations of L’Etranger reveal the most contemporary translation as being more open to alterity. Examples from the translations and the original help show that retranslations helped restore Camus’ philosophical project, conveyed by his spare writing and relative paucity of dialogue.