What is "self-translation"

Self-translation is a translation of a source text into a target text by the writer of the source text. Self-translation occurs in various writing situations. Since research on self-translation largely focuses on literary self-translation, this article will tend to have a similar focus.

The practice of self-translation has attracted critical attention especially since the beginning of this century, in the wake of intensive investigation into the field of non-authorial translation in the twentieth century. Literary self-translation has been recognized as a special branch of translation studies at least since the publication of the first edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies in 1998.