Jorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers, which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject. So likewise in Joรฃo Gilberto Noll, readers shouldn't expect samba and Carnival and football. The Brazilian national identity is not one of his primary concerns.
Adam MorrisUnless you count the political backdrop, which in any case is a familiar one to many international readers, I don't think there's anything that I would call essentially Brazilian in Joรฃo Gilberto Noll work. In that regard, it translates very well to a cosmopolitan audience.
Adam MorrisOne 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 MorrisJorge Luis Borges had the soapbox and the authority to complain about this myopic understanding of the duty of Latin American writers, which sometimes forecloses their unique modernism and experience of modernization in favor of a mythic past or an artificially constructed ideal national subject. So likewise in Joรฃo Gilberto Noll, readers shouldn't expect samba and Carnival and football. The Brazilian national identity is not one of his primary concerns.
Adam MorrisI am not one of those translators who think that working closely with the writer will yield the best translation.
Adam MorrisThis neglect of a very important Brazilian writer is, in my view, the result of Brazil's relative isolation from what metropolitan tastemakers. If Joรฃo Gilberto Noll were writing in French or German or even Russian, it's likely he'd be more broadly translated.
Adam MorrisI 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. An easy example would be the Portuguese escuridรฃo: 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.
Adam Morris