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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.

Adam Morris

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
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
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
Dreamlike sequencing is perhaps one of João Gilberto Noll’s most remarkable triumphs in Quiet Creature on the Corner.
ADAM MORRIS

Creature Dreamlike Most Mystery Quiet Quite Remarkable Sequencing Thinking
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
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
When I think about literature, I think about it in the three languages I read easily – English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
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Country English Language Literature Portuguese Spanish Think Three
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
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
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
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.
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Adore Claim Country Divisive Enjoy Injustice Somewhat Time Tremendous Universal
And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
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Country Matter Necessarily Particular Relational Universal
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.
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Exactly Experience Filmmaker Mystery Novelist Think Translate Work
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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Broadly Country Likely Noll People Translated 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 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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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