Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.
Once I looked into it, I was taken aback to learn that pretty much nothing by João Gilberto Noll was available in English translation. I was confident that I could find an editor and the readership for a translation: Noll is highly respected in Brazil, and at the same time divisive, somewhat like Hilda Hilst. Neither of them enjoys the universal acclaim you might associate with Clarice Lispector, whom everyone adores, myself included. Still, I considered it a tremendous injustice that Noll had not been more widely translated and was determined to rectify it.
Unless 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 João Gilberto Noll work. In that regard, it translates very well to a cosmopolitan audience.