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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.

Adam Morris

An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridão:
ADAM MORRIS

Country Escuridao Example
Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers
ADAM MORRIS

Authority Complain Football Latin Myopic People Soapbox Understanding Unique Writer
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.
ADAM MORRIS

Actually Author Country Culture Every Interested Literature Relate Represent
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
I 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.
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Accept Psychedelic Quiet Realist Straightforward Surprise Way Word
If João Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it’s likely he’d be more broadly translated.
ADAM MORRIS

Broadly Country Likely Noll People Translated Writing
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
I was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation
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Confident Editor Readership Translation
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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Constructed Experience Modernization Mythic National Subject Unique
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
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
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.
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Break Choices Dark Language Minor Myself Romance Rule Time Translating
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
English offers both obscurity and dark or darkness, and some translators will tell you the Latinate word is generally reserved for poetic and figurative expressions, while the Germanic word is used for colloquial and idiomatic use.
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Both Darkness English Idiomatic Obscurity Offer Reserved Translator Use
Unless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers
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Backdrop Count Familiar International Political Reader Thinking Unless
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

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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