In spite of today’s almost unanimous opinion on the subject (“Historically, few authors have dared to translate their own works”), a long tradition of self-translations runs through the history of the last millennium. It is enough to think of Tho. More, Du Bellay, Calvin, John Donne, Goldoni, Mistral, Tagore, Beckett, Aitmatov or Julian Green. A cultural and linguistic phenomenon which is increasingly frequent, it deserves much more attention than it has been received to this date. [Based on abstract in journal]