Sylvia Wynter

Translating in mirrors

Photo of Don Mee Choi ©Photographer SONG Got, courtesy of Don Mee Choi.
Photo of Don Mee Choi ©Photographer SONG Got, courtesy of Don Mee Choi.

The title of Don Mee Choi’s new pamphlet, Translation is a Mode=Translation is an Anti-neocolonial mode, contains a “=” mark, a symbol that is not written language and yet conveys a recognizable meaning. The equal sign establishes equivalency: the “=” holds a mirror to the first clause, showing a second clause that’s not an exact replica, yet is in some ways a reflection. The “=” achieves what Choi approaches in her pamphlet: translation as a twinning language. As Choi writes on the first page of her pamphlet, “I come from such twoness.

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