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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

An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
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Country Escuridao Example
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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Important Nonfiction Primarily Reflection Research Spending Writing
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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Alternative Cognate Conveyed English False Idea Long Sometimes Tricky
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
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
Still, I considered it a tremendous injustice that Noll had not been more widely translated and was determined to rectify it.
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Considered Determined Injustice Noll Rectify Translated Tremendous Widely
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
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 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
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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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