Yesterday I was watching a documentary about Karen Blixen, the heroine of “Out of Africa”, a movie based on her autobiography with the same title, and played by an unforgettable Meryl Streep. At a certain point Denys Finch-Hatton (played in the movie by the one and only Robert Redford) is mentioned as “the great love of her life” and I wondered about why is it that all great love stories – or most of them – have such sad …
Tag: love secrets lies
Flipping through the pages of my book Love Secrets Lies – something I never seem to tire of — I came across a few paragraphs that, in my opinion, describe particularly well the sadness of a break up. She later confided in me that choosing Tozé seemed the best for everybody. Once Miriam had made up her mind, she travelled to London, where she could face Sean one last time, scraps of paper in the pockets of her …
Let me introduce a few characters in my book, Love Secrets Lies. First there’s Teresa, the protagonist. The story spans five years of her life. When it begins, in 1975, she’s twelve, and her storybook life has just been upended by a revolution that forces her to move to a country and a city where she feels like a foreigner. Her grandparents worry too much about her, keep her under strict supervision and allowing her little freedom …
When I was young, I had a song for every mood, every occasion; joy or heartbreak, it didn’t matter, I needed music in the background, I needed it pouring into my ears, my veins, my heart. Teresa, the main character in my book, Love Secrets Lies, was no different. The story dawns on Teresa still living in Mozambique, a land where summer never ends; where she and her mother sang along to the honeyed tropical sounds of Roberto …
On April 25, 1974, the sun also rose. Little did Teresa know that day marked the absolute end of childhood. Thousands of miles away in Lisbon, the capital of a crumbling empire, the military had turned against the heads of state, and people had taken to the street en masse, handing out carnations to armed men who never fired a single shot. The ‘New State’ was no more. News of the revolution reached Mozambique the following day. Teresa’s …
This story is about a girl. Teresa. It begins in 1975, when she’s only twelve. She’s just left her homeland, Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, now riven by revolution and madness. In the wake of civil war, fear and terror crack open Teresa’s idyllic childhood. Even the family pets act distraught. Granny no longer tends to her roses. Everybody starts sleeping in the same room, afraid of knives in the night. They must flee the land they have …
There was a girl who lived in a land of perpetual summer. She could not imagine it would come to an end sooner than she thought. Teresa lived with her family in a huge house, surrounded by a luscious garden. She, her brother and playmates capered in the shade of massive trees and played games of make-believe where princes and princesses fought dragons and wizards and saved the day and fell in love. In that garden, where her …
This story is about a girl. Teresa. It begins in 1975, when she’s only twelve. She’s just left her homeland, Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, now riven by revolution and madness. In the wake of civil war, fear and terror crack open Teresa’s idyllic childhood. Even the family pets act distraught. Granny no longer tends to her roses. Everybody starts sleeping in the same room, afraid of knives in the night. They must flee the land they have …
On April 25, 1974, the sun also rose. Little did Teresa know that day marked the absolute end of childhood. Thousands of miles away in Lisbon, the capital of a crumbling empire, the military had turned against the heads of state, and people had taken to the street en masse, handing out carnations to armed men who never fired a single shot. The ‘New State’ was no more. News of the revolution reached Mozambique the following day. Teresa’s …
At times like these, when you stand in awe of the vast changes reworking your life, and you ask yourself whether you’ll ever get back so many of the things you took for granted, it’s inevitable to hark back to the good old days and wish for a time machine. It doesn’t matter how kind life has been to me, how much I love my sons, or how much fulfilment I’ve found in my career — nothing compares to …
