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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

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.
ADAM MORRIS

Artificially Borge Correctly Country Demonstrative Engage Expecting Legitimize Past
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
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
ADAM MORRIS

Country Escuridao Example
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Concern Country Identity Mean National Primary Reading
Unless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
ADAM MORRIS

Backdrop Count Familiar International Political Reader Thinking Unless
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Alleged Authenticity Lamenting Latin Measure Tradition Variety
One that actually relates to all Latin American literature: that is, not every author is interested in being a representative of his or her national culture on the global stage.
ADAM MORRIS

Actually Author Country Culture Every Interested Literature Relate Represent
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

Attention Easy Make Pleasing Read Writing
Still, I considered it a tremendous injustice that Noll had not been more widely translated and was determined to rectify it.
ADAM MORRIS

Considered Determined Injustice Noll Rectify Translated Tremendous Widely
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Adore Claim Country Divisive Enjoy Injustice Somewhat Time Tremendous Universal
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
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Carnival Concern Football Identify Likewise National Noll Primary Reader Samba
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
This neglect of a very important Brazilian writer is, in my view, the result of Brazil’s relative isolation from what metropolitan tastemakers.
ADAM MORRIS

Important Isolation Neglect Relative Result Writer 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.
ADAM MORRIS

Exactly Experience Filmmaker Mystery Novelist Think Translate Work
When I think about literature, I think about it in the three languages I read easily – English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
ADAM MORRIS

Country English Language Literature Portuguese Spanish Think Three

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.

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Popular Authors

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