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

Adam Morris

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
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
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
Reading across three languages is a way for me to diversify my intake as a reader, not to tunnel into certain categories or demographics.
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Across Category Demographic Diversity Intake Language Reader Reading Tunnel
With My Dog-Eyes by Hilda Hilst got more exposure and reached far more readers than I ever expected.
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Expected Exposure Far House Latin Reached Reader Risk
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
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.
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Attention Easy Make Pleasing Read Writing
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.
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Actually Author Country Culture Every Interested Literature Relate Represent
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Considered Determined Injustice Noll Rectify Translated Tremendous Widely
This neglect of a very important Brazilian writer is, in my view, the result of Brazil’s relative isolation from what metropolitan tastemakers.
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Important Isolation Neglect Relative Result Writer Writing
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.
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Anything Audience Cosmopolitan Essentially Noll Regard Think Translate Work
The fiction I’ve written and published is certainly inflected by the work of authors I was reading or translating at the time.
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Author Certainly Fiction Inflected Intense Published Reading Reading. Time Translate Work
Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
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Authority Complain Football Latin Myopic People Soapbox Understanding Unique Writer
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
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

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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