Self-translate to manipulate

Translation involves the carrying-over of texts to target audiences that have at their disposal an established system of representation with its own norms for the production and consumption of knowledge vis-à-vis self, others, objects, and events. Based on its own culture, this system animates and regulates issues of identity, similarity, and difference between sources and targets. Notwithstanding its generally noble mission, translation is not innocent. Translators manipulate information to achieve representations of sources acceptable to target audiences. Given this premise, the aim here is to examine instances from the self-translation by Heikal of Autumn of Fury from English (1983) into Arabic (1988). The discussion shows how through self-translation, the author-cum-translator manipulates the reading position of the target audience, shaping thus translation as process, product, and reception.