PREFACE

‘’ I grew up in a small coastal town 15mn by train from Lisbon, Portugal. My dad used to fish as a hobby, so winter or summer he could often be found with his fishing pole standing on the rocks waiting for the fishes to bite. Once, he found a penguin that had been dragged by the waves. It was alive, and my dad, being an enthusiastic museologist brought him home. I was very little, around 5 years old, but I remember playing with it in the balcony. It passed away shortly after, even before my dad had time to take him to the local zoo. Years later, when those memories came back into my mind, I thought I had dreamt it. It was just a hazy small fragment of memory, my dad arriving home with a penguin, me playing with it in the balcony. So distant and so unlikely, that in my teenager mind, it couldn’t have happened. Until I asked my family and they confirmed that those indistinct images I had in my mind were, in fact, memories of something that had actually happened, rather than memories of a dream.’’

Mara Cabral