In this paper we try to find an answer concerning the existence or non-existence of a difference between translation and self-translation, two practices that can be easily perceived as identical ones. To distinguish the differences between them, we fully support the hypothesis launched by Irina Mavrodin that self-translation, in comparison with translation, is out of simulacrum, being a creation in the full sense of the term. This hypothesis reinforces the idea that the allograph translation as well as the auctorial translation are two different operations and each of them is constraining. Irina Mavrodin was not only a theorist and a researcher, but also a poet who translated her own poems. Combining theory and practice we analyse some of her literary works from the point of view of the phenomenon of self-translation.