# Translator's Preface explained — The Story of My Experiments with Truth

> Chapter companion for The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi.

## What happens

The translator describes the fortunate accident of being tasked with translating Gandhi's autobiography into English for Young India. He acknowledges the translation's imperfections but notes that the author himself carefully revised the meaning, and Shrimati Miraben (Miss Madeleine Slade) revised the language. The preface is dated 1 August 1927 from Satyagrahashram.

## Character check-ins

### Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Author of the autobiography, whose meaning was carefully revised by himself.

### Mahadev Desai

Translator of the autobiography into English for Young India.

## Key lines

> It was by a fortunate accident that the privilege of translating into English, for Young India, the Story of My Experiments with Truth, or Gandhiji's Autobiography, as it was being published in Navajivan from week to week, fell to me.

The translator was unexpectedly given the opportunity to translate Gandhi's autobiography into English for Young India.

_The translator expresses humility about the assignment._

> But it might be some comfort to the reader to know that the volume, in the form in which it now appears, has had, so far as the meaning of the author is concerned, the benefit of his own careful revision, and so far as the language is concerned, the advantage of equally careful revision by Shrimati Miraben (Miss Madeleine Slade), who cast in her lot with us at the Ashram a year and a half ago.

The translation has been carefully reviewed by Gandhi for accuracy and by Miraben for language quality.

_The translator reassures readers of the translation's reliability._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_story_of_my_experiments_with_truth_se/chapters/translator-s-preface
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_story_of_my_experiments_with_truth_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_story_of_my_experiments_with_truth_se/chapters