Not so long ago this journal published an excellent overview of the issues related to the reliability of translations. But neither this, nor apparently any other study, considered the case of a text translated by its own author, hence a note on this topic may have some use. As I just finished translating of my own Le Rwanda ancien (Paris, 2001), I have been prompted to do so. The issues still are: how reliable is this sort of translation to the original? Is it really equivalent to the original?

Translations of modern works can be grouped in three categories according to the knowledge an author has about the language in which his or her work is being translated: the author does not know the language of the translation at all; the author knows that language well enough to check on the reliability of a translation; or the author knows that language to the point that he or she can translate the work him-or herself. In the first case, even the author has no idea how faithful the translation is to the original. In the second case the overall reliability of the translation can be guaranteed by the author, but his or her limited knowledge of the language in question means that he or she may be unaware that some parts of the translation may not be faithful in the sense that readers might understand them in ways the author did not intend. Moreover, the great majority of translations by others will still strike native readers of the language into which it is translated as stilted because its rhetorical devices, and perhaps its syntax, do not wholly conform to the usual practice in that language. Indeed some passages may seem quaint or even especially striking merely because standard idioms or metaphors have been too literally translated. But surely self-translation should be completely reliable, especially when the translated text has been also copy-edited by a native speaker of the language in which it is translated?