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Reading across three languages is a way for me to diversify my intake as a reader, not to tunnel into certain categories or demographics.

Adam Morris

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.
ADAM MORRIS

Author Capital Considered Cultural Introduce List Outset Realized Spend Top
Which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject.
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Constructed Experience Modernization Mythic National Subject Unique
The authors I prefer are all very different and are not limited to certain genres or even certain time periods.
ADAM MORRIS

Author Certain Different Genre Limited Period Prefer
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Fiction Intoxicating Own Power Progress Recognizing Resist Signature Strength Voice Writer
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
Once I looked into it, I was taken aback to learn that pretty much nothing by Joao Gilberto Noll was available in English translation.
ADAM MORRIS

Aback Available Determined Injustice Looked Nothing Pretty Taken
Jorge Luis Borges was lamenting a variety of Orientalism that was used to measure the alleged authenticity of Argentine and Latin American writers in the midcentury.
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Alleged Authenticity Lamenting Latin Measure Tradition Variety
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
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Country Escuridao Example
Dreamlike sequencing is perhaps one of João Gilberto Noll’s most remarkable triumphs in Quiet Creature on the Corner.
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Creature Dreamlike Most Mystery Quiet Quite Remarkable Sequencing Thinking
If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.
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Broadly Country Likely Noll People Translated Writing
I am surprised by the word psychedelic. João Gilberto Noll does not accept realism in a straightforward way, but I am more inclined to call Quiet Creature a realist text than I am to call it a psychedelic one.
ADAM MORRIS

Accept Psychedelic Quiet Realist Straightforward Surprise Way Word
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Bored Country Decided Latin Literature Main Reading Reason Thinking
English offers both obscurity and dark or darkness, and some translators will tell you the Latinate word is generally reserved for poetic and figurative expressions, while the Germanic word is used for colloquial and idiomatic use.
ADAM MORRIS

Both Darkness English Idiomatic Obscurity Offer Reserved Translator Use
And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
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Country Matter Necessarily Particular Relational Universal
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
Unless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
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Backdrop Count Familiar International Political Reader Thinking Unless
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
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Author Encounter Fiction Inflected Published Reading Translating Work Writer
Some critics have commented that understanding the specific Brazilian political context of the novel is helpful for reading Quiet Creature. This may be true, but it’s not prerequisite for understanding it.
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Context Critic Helpful Novel Political Prerequisite True Understanding
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
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 fiction I’ve written and published is certainly inflected by the work of authors I was reading or translating at the time.
ADAM MORRIS

Author Certainly Fiction Inflected Intense Published Reading Reading. Time Translate Work
With My Dog-Eyes by Hilda Hilst got more exposure and reached far more readers than I ever expected.
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Expected Exposure Far House Latin Reached Reader Risk
So likewise in João Gilberto Noll, readers shouldn’t expect samba and Carnival and football. The Brazilian national identity is not one of his primary concerns.
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Carnival Concern Football Identify Likewise National Noll Primary Reader Samba
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.
ADAM MORRIS

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
English can be tricky because there are so many false cognates, but sometimes, as long the idea conveyed is not wrong, these false cognates can themselves offer synonyms or lead to a better alternative word or phrase in translation.
ADAM MORRIS

Alternative Cognate Conveyed English False Idea Long Sometimes Tricky

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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Reading across three languages is a way for me to diversify my intake as a reader, not to tunnel into certain categories or demographics.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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