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La historia:

Un escritor, pedófilo, sádico, académico, brillante, multipremiado e internacionalmente conocido, pero absolutamente enfermo. Enfermo de odio por todo lo que le provocaba miedo: una flor, una niña, una mujer. Una eminencia que se construía a sí mismo como su propio enemigo y, por lo tanto, nacía en él el impulso de exterminar cualquier manifestación de fragilidad o de pureza. El impulso por exterminar su propia vulnerabilidad. Un sociópata, claro está, pero además cobarde, un paralizado incapaz de externar sus sentimientos. Total: un poder. Un pensamiento silencioso, un rencor a punto de atacar.

¿A quién? A una adolescente. Que ha creado un mundo sobre el mundo del escritor y ha llegado a conocerlo a una charla en la universidad. Una adolescente que no le tiene miedo a nada porque es escritora. Y lo acorrala. Su belleza de adolescente hace contacto conél y lo va acorralando. Mientras, él la odia en silencio, e impulsado por su belleza y ese rencor profundo la invita a su vida de escritor. Quisiera destruirla. Asfixiarla. Abrir su yugular y la invita. A su vida de escritor cobarde, con sus comodidades de cobarde y premios de cobarde. Dentro de una casa con vista a jardines donde el beso entre la lluvia y el esmalte de la vegetación dura meses. Mientras, él daba vueltas en la recámara pensando cómo acabar con ella, con el insulto de su escritura primeriza y espontánea, ella se tiraba descalza en el futón de la sala a contemplar el beso entre la lluvia y la vegetación, sumergida en una paz profunda. Y escribía. A pulso. Escribía Estilo.

The story:

A writer: pedophilic, sadistic, academic, brilliant, award winner, internationally known, and yet absolutely sick. Sick with hate towards everything he feared: a flower, a girl, a woman. An eminence that constructs itself as its own enemy, and therefore, birthing from him was the impulse to exterminate any manifestation of fragility or purity. The impulse to exterminate his own vulnerability. A sociopath, of course, but also a coward, paralysed incapable of externalising his own feelings. In total: power. A silent thought, a sense of resentment about to attack.

Who? An adolescent. Who built a world over the writer’s world and who attends a talk at the university in order to acquaint him. An adolescent who fears nothing because she is a writer. And she corners him. Her adolescent beauty makes contact with him and step by step she corners him. Meanwhile, hating her in silence, impelled by her beauty and that deep resentment he invites her into his life as a writer. He would like to destroy her. Asphyxiate her. Open her jugular and he invites her. To his life of a coward writer, with its coward comforts and awards for cowardice. Inside a house with a garden view where the rain’s kiss and the sheen on the vegetation lasts for months. He circles round the bedroom thinking of how to finish her off, spontaneously and with the insult of her first piece of writing, she throws herself barefoot onto the living room futon to contemplate how the rain and the vegetation kiss, submerged in a profound peace. And she wrote. To a pulse. Wrote. Style.

El Proceso

Yo quería separarme de mí. De una escritura que de tanto contar sobre el cuerpo mutilado del amor, adoraba la muerte. Yo quería vida. Así que me separé de mí. Comencé escribiendo una novela donde el personaje principal es un escritor enfermo y cobarde, reaccionando ante la vulnerabilidad y el desprecio que le provoca una escritora primeriza. Así me fui alejando. Primero me alejé hasta la voz del odio masculino, después hasta la visión inexperta de alguien que escribe por primera vez, y que, como si fuera un primer libro para mostrarlo al maestro que admira, escribe Estilo. Quería separarme de mí. Dejar de repetirme. Dejar de ser yo. Todo eso, en realidad, ya estaba sucediendo. Había creado diferentes tipos de escritura: ensayo filosófico, firmado con otros nombres y publicado en internet, varios blogs de personas con diferentes ocupaciones, que contaban sus cosas cotidianas, etc. Así que, el impulso de “dejar de ser”, se convirtió en una novela, donde una escritora adolescente escribe un libro. Logre perderme lo suficiente, supongo. Sin importarme el género, la forma, la voz, sólo el impulso. El desafío del libro que iba a ser leído por un ciego de odio, por un cobarde, escrito por las manos de la sensualidad, el atrevimiento y el amor. Los demás elementos en Estilo son sólo la vida.

The Process

I wanted to separate myself from myself. From a writing that conveys so much on the body mutilated by love, adoring death. I wanted life. So I separated myself from myself. I began to write a novel where the main character is a sick cowardly writer, reacting to the vulnerability and disdain that a first time woman writer provoke. I distanced myself in this manner. First I moved far away towards the voice of masculine hate, then towards the inexpert viewheld by someone who writes for the first time, and which, as if it was the first book one shows the master one admires, writes Style. I wanted to separate myself from me. Stop repeating myself. Stop being me. All that, in reality, was already happening. I had created different types of writing: philosophical essays signed with other names and published online, various blogs by people with different occupations which recount domestic things, etc. The impulse to ‘stop being’ became a novel where an adolescent writer authors a book. I suppose I managed to loose myself just enough. Without caring about genre, form, the voice, only the impulse. The book’s defiance is that it was going to be read by someone blind with hate, by a coward, written by sensuality’s hand, daringness and love. The other elements in Style are only life.

La vida

Los elementos de la vida en cualquier parte, tal y como se manifiesta en Palestina, en Honduras, en Estados Unidos, Grecia, Rotterdam. Turquía, Brasil. China o México, son lo que construye Estilo. Asociar esos elementos a mi biografía: asilo político, periodista, morena, mujer, ciudad de los feminicidios, activista, feminista etc. dentro del sentido y del significado de Estilo, es mucho más conveniente para el corazón del lector: encontrar un punto localizado, que no soy yo (el lector), sino: yo (la escritora), lo mío, mi historia, la historia de una situación, de un país, de una frontera específica, mi catarsis pero, literalmente, ese punto localizado no está en Estilo, ni sugerido. El libro, en sí, discurre en un lugar global, en un lugar que es todos los lugares (códigos): una familia, un país, un sistema, una red que, además, construye una realidad que se multiplica. Construye una forma de relacionarnos y de existir, entre la sumisión y el poder, entre la venganza y el amor, entre el acto y la recompensa, entre dar órdenes y obedecer órdenes. El lugar donde sucede Estilo es ese ‘¿Quién soy?’.

Dolores Dorantes. El Paso, Texas. Diciembre 2019

Life.

Life’s elements, as it manifests itself anywhere, in Palestine, in Honduras, in the United States, Greece, Rotterdam. Turkey, Brazil. China or Mexico, are what construct Style. Associating these elements to my biography: political asylum, journalist, dark skinned, woman, city of feminicide, activist, feminist, etc. inside the sense and the meaning of Style, is much more convenient for the reader’s heart: finding a localised point, that is not me (the reader), but: I (the female writer), what is mine, my history, the history of a situation, of a country, of a specific border, my catharsis that, literally, localised point is not there in Style, nor is it alluded to. The book, in itself, occurs in a place that is global, in a place that is all of those places (codes): a family, a country, a system, a network that, in addition, constructs a reality that multiplies. Constructs a form of relating and of existing, between submission and power, between vengeance and love, between the act and the reward, between giving orders and obeying orders. The place where Style happens is that, ‘Who am I?’.

Dolores Dorantes. El Paso, Texas. December 2019

Translated by Catalina Barroso-Luque Glasgow, United Kingdom. December 2019

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Dolores Dorantes is a Mexican poet, journalist, and writer living under political asylum in El Paso, Texas. She has published nine books of poetry and prose, most recently The River/El Río (2018), a collaboration with the photographer Zoe Leonard; Style/Estilo (2015 a book of prose poems that transforms the acts and language of violence into unexpected images; and, Intervenir/Intervene (2015), a collaboration with Mexico City poet Rodrigo Flores Sánchez. Her work has been translated into English, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Slovenian, Bengali, and Swedish. Dorantes is a priest in the Mahajrya Buddhist tradition. She is also a performer and bookseller working out of her mobile bookstore Librería Feminista, and the organization Cielo Portátil (for a free education).

Catalina Barroso-Luque is a Mexican artist based in Glasgow. Her practice spans across writing (Spanish and English), installation, performance and curation; utilising language and sexuality as instruments of power. Between October-December 2019, Catalina led the Penetrate: Translate reading group organised in association with MAP.