KingSzmaragd

KingSzmaragd t1_jedcpub wrote

As a Brazilian I feel truly embarassed by Paulo Coelho's books. That is not we have to show the world. I feel sad that from an international perspective Paulo Coelho overshadows magnificent Brazilian authors such as Machado de Assis, João Ubaldo, Ariano Suassuna, Jorge Amado, Guimarães Rosa, among others.

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KingSzmaragd t1_jedbatt wrote

As a portuguese native speaker, I think Saramago is the only author (at least among those I know) whose books must suffer a very important loss when translated from portuguese to any other language, to the point it really affects the experience. The other authors you mentioned may suffer a little, but no one even close to Saramago IMO. I am not convinced of the exact reason for that, but maybe it happens because Saramago writes like our head thinks (like a deep and continuous thought) and that is more particular to a language than a text designed to be "correctly structured" and to make sense, as most authors do even in their native languages.

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