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I primarily write nonfiction. Research, reflection, and spending time with ideas are important to me. So, this is how I spend most of my time writing – in thought.

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.
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Break Choices Dark Language Minor Myself Romance Rule Time Translating
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
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
I only translate authors whose work already interests me as a reader, and that’s a decision I make based on multiple encounters with an author’s work.
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Already Author Decision Interest Multiple Reader Translate
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
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Country Escuridao Example
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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Attention Easy Make Pleasing Read Writing
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.
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Author Certainly Fiction Inflected Intense Published Reading Reading. Time Translate Work
Once I looked into it, I was taken aback to learn that pretty much nothing by Joao Gilberto Noll was available in English translation.
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Aback Available Determined Injustice Looked Nothing Pretty Taken
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
I am not one of those translators who think that working closely with the writer will yield the best translation.
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Best Closely Think Thinking Translation Translator Working Writer Yield
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
And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
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Country Matter Necessarily Particular Relational Universal
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
Noll is highly respected in Brazil, and at the same time divisive, somewhat like Hilda Hilst. Neither of them enjoys the universal acclaim you might associate with Clarice Lispector, whom everyone adores, myself included.
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Adore Claim Country Divisive Enjoy Injustice Somewhat Time Tremendous Universal
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

I primarily write nonfiction. Research, reflection, and spending time with ideas are important to me. So, this is how I spend most of my time writing – in thought.

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I primarily write nonfiction. Research, reflection, and spending time with ideas are important to me. So, this is how I spend most of my time writing – in thought.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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