Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
ADAM MORRISJorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
ADAM MORRISThe 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.
ADAM MORRISThis 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 MORRISUnless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
ADAM MORRISThe transcendent aspect of the psychedelic experience is totally absent.
ADAM MORRISIf João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.
ADAM MORRISThe authors I prefer are all very different and are not limited to certain genres or even certain time periods.
ADAM MORRISEven 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 MORRISWith My Dog-Eyes by Hilda Hilst got more exposure and reached far more readers than I ever expected.
ADAM MORRISI am surprised by the word psychedelic. João Gilberto Noll does not accept realism in a straightforward way, but I am more inclined to call Quiet Creature a realist text than I am to call it a psychedelic one.
ADAM MORRISStrength 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 MORRISBorges, 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 MORRISSome 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 MORRISOnce I looked into it, I was taken aback to learn that pretty much nothing by Joao Gilberto Noll was available in English translation.
ADAM MORRISStill, I considered it a tremendous injustice that Noll had not been more widely translated and was determined to rectify it.
ADAM MORRISI 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