Writing to Learn About Yourself
In conversation with novelist and translator Bruna Dantas Lobato.
BOOK CLUB MEETING IN ONE WEEK
Book Club for Writers meets on Zoom on Wednesday, October 30, 8-9:30pm EST to discuss Writing Wild: Forming a Creative Partnership with Nature.
Join the discussion by becoming a paid subscriber: it’s just $5 for the month of October. Cancel anytime. A recording will be provided for those who can’t make it live.
Paid subscribers can find the book club Zoom link below the paywall of this email.
AN INTERVIEW WITH BRUNA DANTAS LOBATO
Over on The Creative Independent this week, I spoke with writer and translator Bruna Dantas Lobato. Her wonderful debut novel, Blue Light Hours, was released last week.
I met Bruna at Bread Loaf this summer, just a few months after she won the National Book Award for her translation of The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel. I was anxious meeting her, never knowing how to act around writers who’ve won fancy accolades. But I don’t think anyone has ever given me a more positive and lasting first impression: minutes after meeting Bruna, I learned that she has a pet rabbit, makes miniatures in her spare time, and almost always foregoes vegetables to save room for dessert.
Then I read her novel, which is easily one of my favorites of 2024. Loosely based on Bruna’s experience immigrating from Brazil to the States for school, it’s about a college student in Vermont and the blue-lit conversations she has with her mother over Skype. The final section, called “Reunion,” made me ugly cry. Five stars. Read it.
Here are some of my favorite moments from my conversation with Bruna Dantas Lobato about learning who we are through our creative work.
💬 ON TRANSLATION
“When I translate, I can hold that entire book in my body. From beginning to end, the whole arc.”
📖 ON TRANSLATING HER OWN NOVEL INTO HER NATIVE LANGUAGE
“I had a little sticky note next to my computer that just said, ‘Translate the page.’ Not everything else that existed in my head or outside of it or my memories or my concerns. When I translate other authors, I have to focus on that, too: on the text as an object, the book as an object of its own.”
🏆 ON WINNING A HUGE AWARD
I really appreciated Bruna’s honesty about winning the National Book Award.
“I am just as insecure as I was the day before I got the award, and just as scared as well, and that part has not changed. I really wish it had because I’m so sick of being afraid, afraid that my career will end, that I will never write anything again: all the fears that I’ve always had. Every time I write a story, I’m like, “I bet that was the last one.” I still feel that way. That part has not changed.”
🤑 BELOW TODAY’S PAYWALL
Everything you need to access the next Book Club for Writers meeting next Wednesday, October 30, 8-9:30pm EST.
I’d love to have you at our meeting, even if you don’t have time to read most (or any!) of the book. We’ll be doing lots of prompts together. After all, this is a book club just for writers!
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