Preamble
- Good Morning. The question "Do you want another life?" is full of promise but as enigmatic as your novel "White Armchair". From what I glimpsed, the subject is a continuation of this "white chair."
- Indeed. The story have the same acters, with one more. They live together in Portugal, where Manu, the heroine of "White Armchair" had set up another life after the one in Belgium. If you remember, Manu caming from Belgium, was married in her second Portuguese family in the Algarve where she has encountered her father. Its Portuguese half-sister, Luiza is becoming the heroine of this new story introducing this new character. This time the story is moving in the Lisbon area.
- Why Is Portugal the country where you fit what we can call your second volume?
- Portugal is a country that I love. I spent three times good time in the Algarve, twice in Madeira and twice in 1980 and 2014, in the Lisbon area as a certain pilgrimage. Returning to a region reveals differences in time. More occurrences are remote and are becoming more interesting. A lot of water under the bridge must have sunk since my first visit in Lisbon. Alarming articles on the situation in Portugal ruffled me a few hairs on the skin. There was talk of uncontrolled skids, for example.
- So you love the country and its capital.
- Yes I'm living in another city, Brussels. That means that I know the advantages and disadvantages that can make a city. Lisbon's history is a Babel who lived ups and downs dazzling overwhelming for people. Not for nothing that nostalgia is part of his mood. Before the earthquake and tsunami in 1755, Lisbon saw coming wealth of cargo, with colored men often treated as slaves in the shadow of prostitution and begging. It was only fifty years after this natural disaster, under the impulse of the Marquis of Pombal, the city was reborn from the ashes with the taste of the enlightenment. She became a business city and catholic. Lisbon discovers often preceded by a great noise depending on the mood of the day of his visitor. It does offer walkers as patients and not the top of the castle of St. George which gives a beautiful landscape for the tourist photo where you can find nothing but reflected realities of everyday. Built in tiers, the bottom of Lisbon, Baixa district, was restored by the spirit of the famous Marquis with streets at right angles and up, Baioro Alto de Alfama, best preserved, its always kept maze of narrow streets, small trades, greengrocers, fishmongers from. My heroine lived in Alfama, but had taken courses in 2001 in the new Lisbon and continued to exercise its knowledge as laboratory assistant returning in the lower city.
- Did you lear a little about Portuguese history to know its characteristics?
- In fact, during my first visit, I made better by studying its history in detail. I knew after successive kings. But I have lost a few pieces of this long history to retain only that had to do with the needs of the time of my last trip. My book is almost uµin a full actuality, I did not have to go very high in time. It begins on the first day of 2014.
- Why the city continues to interest you?
- As I said, the national anthem of Portugal remains the fado singing melancholy and saudade exile. When the sea for single wasteland, as sang Jacques Brel, only recourse in case of misfortune and that is revolutionary by destiny, singing life, so hard that we can live it, we always end up forget his sorrows. "These are small nations who are more likely. They jump into the water with their few assets and their big ambitions," I read somewhere about it. We are far from the time of the discovery era of Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, Zarco, Cabral. The Manueline art and tiles found at every street corner, reminiscent of the historic heritage.
- Since we are in the news, in Portugal today, what happened according to you during the last decade?
- That exile continued. 250 million people speak Portuguese in the world in a real diaspora. Since 2010, 100,000 young pushed by the crisis, resume sail each year, while expatriates only dream of return. The film Ruben Alvez, "The Gilded Cage" and the book of the Nobel Prize, José Saramego "The Stone Raft" imagine Portugal adrift in the Atlantic. It's saying something. You are aware that the former Prime Minister Jose Socrates was indicted for tax fraud, corruption and money laundering. He ruled the country between 2005 and 2011.
- Indeed. But Lisbon has kept the charm as tourists return each year.
- Of course. An old-fashioned charm, always loved by tourists. But the average age of the population has aged Lisbon with the houses that inhabit them. Many young people have gone elsewhere if the grass is not greener, hoping one day to return. It would take ten times the national budget to restore everything in the town from what I've read recently. Portugal, which had attracted Manu, my former hero, there was nearly thirteen, lost some feathers on the altar of banks. The country found itself like a ship on the European ocean swaying dangerously. Ship took on water in an austerity regime. A project like the 1998 show is no longer in the program. The crisis led to 500,000 job losses, reduced wages by 12%. Frozen rents have hindered the normal operation of the maintenance of dwellings. So, in an atmosphere of gloom, we deal with the most pressed with an inventiveness found only by necessity. To save the architectural heritage, for the most wealthy tourists occupy new luxury hotels, it sells off prices. The 2014 World football has a low profile in Portugal, although Ronaldo is still ranked number one. The other Portuguese-speaking countries, Brazil is not a shadow of himself, while the huge investments made have had the downside and foreign countries as beneficiaries. Fortunately for the Lisbon native, there saudade which carries this love and death. In its procession in honor of Nossa Senhora da Saude, the Atlantic swells of foam attracts surfers, offshore wind, oil and gas deposits that make you dream and are, as you say, that tourists, but also investors return. Hopefully they fulfill the palaces that remain desperately empty outside the beautiful seasons. Continental Portugal has the sweetness of Madeira.
- All this we may be away from your book.
- No, that explains it. There are no secrets as in the "White Chair". This novel is pure fiction again with fictional characters, but unlike the previous story, we are, within a year, in full today. It is not a story but a reflection of the experiences of the Portuguese. If you hear a little less news than those from Greece, thanks to the retention of the Portuguese population. Heroin, Luiza, lives in Lisbon since the early years of this century, where she followed her life as laboratory assistant. This January 1, 2014. She is 32 years old when my story begins. 32, the age of reason and sometimes of unreason and questions. It does not feel good about herself. She managed his studies and, despite this, finds himself caught up in the turmoil. Everyday situation, perhaps, since this is a very common feeling in the whole Europe. But it all depends on the psychology of his mistress.
- A story about the poverty of the people?
- I Don't. A story about a meeting with someone very different from Luiza, one of the heroine of the previous novel, which has already lived a lot, which was launched in genetics, which was successful and had failures before. Without him, without a meeting, Luiza who has not the ardor of his half-sister, might have foundered. It was the catalyst for change that will take place in it. Somewhat inspired by gentillet TV movie "Fallen on the head" which featured a pretentious businessman and a full artist sensitivity and candid. Following a shock, this businessman does not remember anything. Luiza is going to have the same disappointment. She will follow this man as if it were a lifeline, a scientist completed her age. A training shock that will not be safe for her.
- You have inspired this TV movie for the background. And form?
- For the form, perhaps the book I talked about in the article "The key to psi ψ" which mixed fiction with proven scientific realities. I gave her first name, Jose eto my new hero of the story.
- Will you introduce yourself in the shoes of one of the characters in the story and talk in the first person?
- I really hesitate to use the word "I". Then I discovered that it was easier to be part of history by not repeating "Jose said," "Luiza did." No, I was neither one nor the other. I do not have the skills of the character, "José" nor the feelings of "Luiza". I had to inform me about some more scientific passages. The "I" will change head in history. Each will speak in turn, on its own behalf. Do not worry, at times, I will be speaking as a spectator or as an observer. I remain master aboard my story (laughs).
- You did not give him a little to the character of "José"?
- Yes, of course, a little. I know my strengths and my through. I know that may shock psychologies that can be encountered in life. It is also more of a psychological analysis of characters of a tourist visit with accompanying description. The decor will take up less space than in my first volume. As I said in the introduction of the first volume, an eternity is it not made of coincidences and anecdotes that take the time they want? (Laughs) But time, age helping, it is that the designs change. No Portuguese words, only "Tudo bem". Magic words, ultimately.
Happy reading ...
