By the end of 1997, I received an invitation from my former university tutor to join a group of professionals from different areas to write a commemorative document about the 500 years of history of Brazil, which would be celebrated in the year 2000. As a dietitian, my part would be to write about how different peoples - from Europe (mainly Portuguese), Africa (slaves) and the newly discovered world (native indigenous) - shared their foods and eating habits in that cultural melting pot which was Colonial Brazil.

 

What a fantastic experience it was in so many different ways! 

 

Researching and writing became my new passion. I turned this request into my PhD subject and started an academic carrier.

 

So it was that, after reading hundreds of books – about Portuguese and colonial Brazil history, economy, politics, great navigations, sea voyage logbooks, thesis, articles, and an uncountable amount of old and lost documents, hidden under the dusty shelves of the many libraries I was able to visit around Brazil – I gained a new perspective about life, but above all, it opened a new door to a world beyond my nutrients intake recommendations and human physical health: a more in-depth knowledge about our human nature, our souls, loves and fears.

In 2001, I had the great pleasure of presenting the fruit of five years of my work, my thesis, “The impact of the first three centuries of History in the Portuguese America in the formation of Brazilian eating habits”, which was turned into the book "A Formação da Brasilidade Alimentar" (available only in Portuguese – sorry – to be yet published)

 

If on the one hand I was learning so much about history and the achievements and losses of this almost wild part of the European and America History, on the other,  as a way to get some distraction, I turned my attention towards fiction and read almost all books of Agatha Christie and some other classics, like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen I could find.

 

Later on, after another significant change, I found myself writing and editing technical articles for a magazine specialised in business. The best part was using all my previous knowledge to turn those cold articles – born from the need to understand laws and regulations or market trends and statistics – into a more pleasant, and even, a more enjoyable reading. The best example I can remember was using Ebenezer Scrooge’s cold and oppressive office, from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” as an example of a problematic workplace! What fun!

 

But it was not until January 2017, after watching (by morbid curiosity, I confess) a movie entitled “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies” (yeah!), that I came across yet with another world: the world of Pride and Prejudice Variations.

 

After that, the sequence of events followed a natural way. I read hundreds of those books, decided those I liked and those I did not like - and why - and after realising the books I enjoyed were much fewer than I would like, I decided to join the team and write my variation.

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With that goal in mind, I am now finishing my last year at university, doing English and History.

 

The American writer and professor, Toni Morrison, said, "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” I have taken that to my heart, and I hope you can enjoy it as much as I have written it.

 

And by the number of ideas brewing in my head, this is just the first of many others to come!