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This makes his writing very pleasing to read: João Gilberto Noll pays attention to detail, but only to certain details. And it’s never easy to foresee which details will send the narrator or the plot in an unsuspected direction.

Adam Morris

I have a few minor rules for myself but I break them all the time. For example, when translating from Romance languages to English, there is often a choice between a Latinate cognate and a Germanic equivalent.
ADAM MORRIS

Break Choices Dark Language Minor Myself Romance Rule Time Translating
Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
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Authority Complain Football Latin Myopic People Soapbox Understanding Unique Writer
If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.
ADAM MORRIS

Broadly Country Likely Noll People Translated Writing
Strength and power in fiction is being able to resist these intoxicating voices, recognizing that they are the signatures of other writers and not one’s own.
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Fiction Intoxicating Own Power Progress Recognizing Resist Signature Strength Voice Writer
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
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Country Escuridao Example
Reading across three languages is a way for me to diversify my intake as a reader, not to tunnel into certain categories or demographics.
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Across Category Demographic Diversity Intake Language Reader Reading Tunnel
Borges, in part to legitimize his own Europhilia, correctly pointed out that expecting writers to engage with these romantic nationalist tropes was arbitrary and limiting, a genre that was demonstrative of its own artificiality.
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Artificially Borge Correctly Country Demonstrative Engage Expecting Legitimize Past
I realized I had some cultural capital to spend, and I wanted to use it to introduce another author who might be considered a risk by conventional publishers. Michael Noll was at the top of my list.
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Author Capital Considered Cultural Introduce List Outset Realized Spend Top
The main reason I decided to study Latin American literature was because I’d gotten somewhat bored by the American fiction I was reading. I am not drawn to a specific style or aesthetic.
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Bored Country Decided Latin Literature Main Reading Reason Thinking
I translated the novel and still it remains a mystery as to how exactly how this works. Noll thinks more like an experimental filmmaker than a novelist.
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Exactly Experience Filmmaker Mystery Novelist Think Translate Work
The Argentine literary tradition was believed by many, including many Argentines, to be concerned with a national imaginary in which the gauchos and the pampas and the tango were fundamental tropes.
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Concerned Country Fundamental Literary National Tango Tradition Trope
When I think about literature, I think about it in the three languages I read easily – English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
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Country English Language Literature Portuguese Spanish Think Three
The authors I prefer are all very different and are not limited to certain genres or even certain time periods.
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Author Certain Different Genre Limited Period Prefer
I don’t think there’s anything that I would call essentially Brazilian in João Gilberto Noll work. In that regard, it translates very well to a cosmopolitan audience.
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Anything Audience Cosmopolitan Essentially Noll Regard Think Translate Work
The Brazilian national identity is not one of João Gilberto Noll primary concerns. This does not mean social critique is absent: race, gender, and class relations are considered in Quiet Creature.
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Concern Country Identity Mean National Primary Reading
One of my methods for developing my own voice in fiction, a process I am taking very slowly and deliberately, is through these very intense encounters with certain writers.
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Author Encounter Fiction Inflected Published Reading Translating Work Writer

This makes his writing very pleasing to read: João Gilberto Noll pays attention to detail, but only to certain details. And it’s never easy to foresee which details will send the narrator or the plot in an unsuspected direction.

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Popular Authors

This makes his writing very pleasing to read: João Gilberto Noll pays attention to detail, but only to certain details. And it’s never easy to foresee which details will send the narrator or the plot in an unsuspected direction.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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