Porno

• Main Author: Songkünnatham, Peera
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: agender; ambiguity; interculturalism; Filipino-ness; translation
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss42/9; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/2070/viewcontent/KK_2042_2C_202023_209_20Literary_20__20Songk_C3_BCnnatham.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article consists of “Porno,” an English translation of a Thai short story titled “หนังโป๊” by Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa, and an introduction explicating literary and cultural issues that arise from the translation process. First published in 2018 in an ad-hoc anthology to fundraise for families of Thai political prisoners, the story captures the atmosphere of political repression— masked as depression—in Bangkok after the death of King Bhumibol in 2016, as refracted through the character of an overseas Filipino worker named Angele, herself no stranger to political repression. The connection between Thailand and the Philippines begins at the story’s inception: the Thai writer was inspired by a scene in Lav Diaz’s film Evolution of a Filipino Family (2005). In the translation process, the translator encounters issues of ambiguity both in representing gender and in representing political repression. The question is whether to reproduce the stylistic ambiguity in translation or, rather, to accentuate the story’s cultural specificity. The translator invites readers from the Philippines to be the judge of the story and its translation. What nourishment can this Thai story give in a Philippine context? Is the story’s portrayal of repression too generic? Are “Lola” and “Tatay” too stereotypical? Does the story, in seizing upon the political and economic decay common to the two countries, blunder into the territory of poverty or trauma porn?