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I was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation

Adam Morris

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
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
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
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
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
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
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
An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
ADAM MORRIS

Country Escuridao Example
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
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
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
The transcendent aspect of the psychedelic experience is totally absent.
ADAM MORRIS

Absent Aspect Experience Psychedelic Totally Transcendent
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 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
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
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 was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation

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I was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation

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Popular Authors

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