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If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.

Adam Morris

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

Across Category Demographic Diversity Intake Language Reader Reading Tunnel
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
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
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
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
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
Even my editor at Melville House, who championed the project form the outset, told me she was surprised by the response. After this, editors began asking my opinion about which Latin American writers ought to be translated.
ADAM MORRIS

Championed Editor Hoise Opinion Outset Response Surprise Translated
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
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
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
The transcendent aspect of the psychedelic experience is totally absent.
ADAM MORRIS

Absent Aspect Experience Psychedelic Totally Transcendent
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
ADAM MORRIS

Country Escuridao Example
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
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Concerned Country Fundamental Literary National Tango Tradition Trope
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Already Author Decision Interest Multiple Reader Translate
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

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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If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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