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

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 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 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 realized I had some cultural capital to spend, and I wanted to use it to introduce another author who might be considered a risk by conventional publishers. Michael Noll was at the top of my list.
ADAM MORRIS

Author Capital Considered Cultural Introduce List Outset Realized Spend Top
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 was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation
ADAM MORRIS

Confident Editor Readership Translation
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
ADAM MORRIS

Country Matter Necessarily Particular Relational Universal

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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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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