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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

Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
ADAM MORRIS

Authority Complain Football Latin Myopic People Soapbox Understanding Unique 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.
ADAM MORRIS

Attention Easy Make Pleasing Read Writing
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

Important Nonfiction Primarily Reflection Research Spending Writing
And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
ADAM MORRIS

Country Matter Necessarily Particular Relational Universal
Which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject.
ADAM MORRIS

Constructed Experience Modernization Mythic National Subject Unique
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Context Critic Helpful Novel Political Prerequisite True Understanding
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
I am not one of those translators who think that working closely with the writer will yield the best translation.
ADAM MORRIS

Best Closely Think Thinking Translation Translator Working Writer Yield
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
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
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
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
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
With My Dog-Eyes by Hilda Hilst got more exposure and reached far more readers than I ever expected.
ADAM MORRIS

Expected Exposure Far House Latin Reached Reader Risk
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

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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