Beyond Meaning: lois-soto minah on Translation
the Nonac: What’s your translation process?
lois: before i answer the first question i want to clarify what i mean when i call myself a translator. from the latin translatus, trans meaning “across, beyond” and latus meaning “borne, carried.”
translation in its literal definition means to carry or bear something into a new form, or across forms. beyond meanings. a transmutation.
i started calling myself a translator after coming out of a really destabilizing psychotic episode. i have borderline personality disorder and psychosis is an active symptom of my diagnosis. it steals the show and often leaves me feeling bereaved. like usual i felt discombobulated and unsure of my footing in the world. i was wondering about my purpose, yanno, that thing that imbues you with clarity and strength throughout your days. your predestined or self-made way to do some good while your limbs are kicking. anyway, i got to thinking about something people tell me often about myself. it goes something like this: “you have a way of taking a big idea and making it concise and translating it to other people”. and i’m thinking about this thing and myself and i realize that that’s it. i’m a translator because i make ideas and futures and histories translatable and accessible to people. that’s what my purpose is, that’s what i do, that’s what i have always done.
i believe in listening to people enthusiastically and in silence. all things can be understood through silence.
the Nonac: What’s your 3 fave works in translation?
lois:
the Nonac: Advice for any emerging writer?
lois: figure out how to write endings. the hardest thing to do sometimes is to stop telling the story, because we’re so invested in it but trust me you need to learn how to stop the story. if you can end your story you can work around it, it becomes pliable because you can see it from every direction.
the Nonac: Tell us more on the Bubble Factory?
lois: the bubble factory is the place where sensitivity happens. i want people to consider being more intimate and transparent with each other. i think letters need to be brought back into fashion because there’s something about sharing your life with someone in writing. that’s what i want people to experience with the bubble factory.
the Nonac: What makes a good letter?
lois: a good letter should be generous. letters are about sharing your life with someone so you have to tell them things you might not normally share. it’s a declaration of intimacy, vulnerability only works when you do. it sounds corny and it’s a tired statement but feeling through ourselves to another person, communicating through the vast landscape of ourselves to another person, that only works when you do.