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 MORRISAn easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
More Adam Morris Quotes
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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.
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Unless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
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The main reason I decided to study Latin American literature was because I’d gotten somewhat bored by the American fiction I was reading. I am not drawn to a specific style or aesthetic.
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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.
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And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country.
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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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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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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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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.
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Dreamlike sequencing is perhaps one of João Gilberto Noll’s most remarkable triumphs in Quiet Creature on the Corner.
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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.
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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.
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Which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject.
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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.
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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.
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