Mona Lisa on Titanic: The Land of Memes
The Mona Lisa is both you and me. How many times do we not know whether to laugh or cry? It would be nice to smile and think everything is simple, and perhaps it is desirable to simplify things on a personal level, but not on a social one.
I wrote my first book at 19 years old. It was 2018, and I was at university when the person who attempted a coup against the state was elected president.
At that moment, I was living a life completely different from the one I had in my childhood, thanks to the opportunities I received through public policies. And that person rising to power represented a threat to those opportunities, which no longer concerned me, but others who wouldn’t have the same possibilities I had. These opportunities didn’t come from my family, but from a public entity ensuring a broader horizon for those who have been disadvantaged for many generations.
I grew up in a house with only men, and I learned to enjoy studying after starting school at the age of 5, thanks to a female teacher. She was the only female figure I had in my daily life. It was a public school, and that teacher was a representation of the state. I started working at 15 years old at Banco do Brasil through an apprenticeship program. When I decided to study on the other side of my country, I was only able to do so thanks to the death pension from my mother, which is part of the public social security system.
I came from a small town with 12,000 inhabitants, didn’t speak English, and decided to study international relations. — I’m a big dreamer girl. Then, when I managed to get into a public university, I only achieved that because of fair competition with people from similar backgrounds, who had the same education I had. This was thanks to programs we have in Brazil called Enem, Sisu, and Cotas.
My book is an attempt to tell this story to raise awareness and then talk about what truly matters: public policies that concern the collective. It is both intimate and social. It is my story and my family’s story, but it is not just about me. These are facts, these are data, and this is my country—what I mean, my people. The same little girls as I once was.
Angel-bela: A Breath of Death
Her mother was killed. It’s not possible to know the beauty of cruelty.
Isabela is my second book. That was the name my mother wanted to give me. But my father, in his role of imposing authority, went to the registry office and wrote down exactly what he wanted.
From Ângela comes Isabela, which is actually inspired by Clarice Lispector’s book Um Sopro de Vida (A Breath of Life). Angel-Bela comes from its opposite, with Um Sopro de Morte (A Breath of Death) as the subtitle. This is certainly linked to the meaning that, for me, is represented by the figure of my mother. However, A Breath of Death in Isabela doesn’t simply relate to tragedy. It tries to bring out the beautiful side of it. The reminder that life is finite.
Having faced death from such an early age, Isabela has the drive to live according to her desires. She is what she is. But at the same time, she is what I am not. Or perhaps we blend together. Are we exactly her?
There are coincidences, like when I found the phrase I have tattooed on my back — she has wings — in Lispector’s book, referring to Ângela.
That is the beautiful and intimate side of the story. But my experience cannot be seen from just this angle. And so, here comes the continuation. “There would be a beautiful story to tell. Before that: silenced. Becoming a woman.” This is the continuation of the book. This is the realistic part. From the intimate to the concrete and real. Isabela is once again the center of my writing. The book I have never been able to finish writing, since the time of the pandemic, 2020. And now, it’s already 2025.
I FANTASIZE ABOUT MY MOTHER TELLING ME TO PUT BEAUTY IN THIS WORLD.
And in these years when I don't write books, I continue with chronicles that are a piece of the feeling I lived. I want to invite you to continue on this site not only to learn about the international events of my first book, but also to continue with the contact of the intimate experience of what I write in living words.