With only 3 days left to subscribe for The Alphabet of Birds, translated from the Afrikaans by author SJ Naude himself, here’s something he wrote for us on the process of self-translation: 

Translating one’s own writing has its benefits and risks. 

The main benefits are clear: not only does it provide the writer-translator with the freedom to deviate from the original text, but it often casts a new light on the original language, causing you to reconsider aspects of that text. The necessarily interpretive act of translation can occasionally even push you towards reconsidering fundamental aspects of structure and character, and can catalyse new ideas. 

The main drawback of self-translation may be that it could cause you to start pre-empting translation. In other words, you anticipate being translated (by yourself), and often without knowing, start avoiding words or syntax or idioms that may be difficult to translate (and conversely, start adopting structures and formulations that are closer to the second language, that translate easily). Richness and difficulty may get lost in this manner. In fact, if you are close enough to the source and target languages, both are already present at the outset. In other words, when writing in Afrikaans, for instance, you already hear the English in your mind: a sort of parallel soundtrack, a translation developing simultaneously. This sterilising effect – the avoidance of structures and formulations for which it may be hard to find English equivalents, thus pushing the two languages closer to each other – may therefore be inherent in being a bilingual author.  If one is to resist the loss of linguistic complexity, it is an instinct that should be countered consciously and constantly.