Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida (Luanda, 1982) is the daughter of a black Angolan mother and a white Portuguese father. Raised in Lisbon, one of her usual problems was her hair, which she did not know how to tame, and this strangeness was the backbone of her first novel in 2015, Ese cabello (Edhasa, Lletra Impresa in Catalan).
The novel reviews the adventures and misadventures of a girl like her, Mila, from hairdresser to hairdresser. Written with a tone between essays and memorials, Pereira de Almeida explains how he turns hair problems into a metaphor: "The book is not so much about hair but about how this girl, Mila, tries to accept herself and her body, and accept as she is while trying to figure out what it means to be black in a European society." “I grew up in Portugal and didn't know anyone who could teach me how to do my hair, but around 2013 a global movement of girls started talking about their natural African hair, and that helped me make peace with myself, and at the same time, after years of not thinking anything about my origins, I was beginning to have a certain curiosity”, recalls the writer, that from these two elements the need to find out certain things from her past arose: “Writing the novel was the way to face it” .
Although she goes through part of her biography, she assures that it is fiction: "I invented a family just remembering, because when you start to remember you already start to make fiction," she clarifies. In the book family, grandparents are very important, as they pepper the book with their stories: “I wanted to write a book that seemed like a compilation of old photographs from the family album, and I tried to recreate with writing the experience you have when you look at a photo album”, and for this reason “each chapter tries to be a different photo”.
In addition, although it reflects everyday racism, it is not a manifesto: “I wanted to write a story that would allow us to approach a life experience that is very similar to mine, and make it reach readers who do not have curly hair or any notion of what it means to be part of a minority in European society”. “I would love for my books to contribute to broadening and broadening the vision of the world of my readers”, insists Pereida de Almeida.
This was her first novel, it made her a revelation author of Portuguese letters and opened doors for her all over the world with translations of her books into eight languages. “Seven years have passed, but for me it is as if a lifetime had passed. It's a long way off for me, because my writing has evolved a lot and my latest books have a very different style, ”she explains. Even now, “they are often stories about the periphery and the fringes of the city, but I write them hoping that my readers, no matter who they are or what color their skin is, can relate to this particular kind of emotion and sensibility.” , but not only that: “It is important to me that a black writer can write about anything, like any writer. I just want to be free and write stories. These problems emerge as part of the concrete lives of the characters, because what interests me is literature”.
Catalan version, here
