To be true to yourself

“They’ve done a documentary about Chavela,” said my friend. We were both in love with Chavela Vargas (http://www.chavelavargasfilm.com/ ). La Llorana, Soledad were already an important part of our personal history, dotted by irregular visits, each marked by a particular theme, a verse, a song. So was Chavela. And we had our famous conversations, or more […]

“You don’t have a home until you leave it and then…”

Although they were contemporaries and lived in the same city for a good chunk of their lives, I have not been able to find out whether Jean-Paul Sartre and James Baldwin met in person. There is anecdotal evidence that Baldwin did not appreciate his early mentor, Richard Wright’s, friendship with Sartre and Beauvoir. But his […]

“I will be the thief”: On privacy and publicness

“Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life”, Gabriel García Márquez I’ve been meaning to write on questions of “privacy” and “publicness” for some time now. I’ve been told, both by well-meaning friends and not so well-meaning others, that I share too much; I expose a lot and I […]

A London Story

There is no perfection only life” ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being It was 1994. I had found myself in London, not entirely as a result of a conscious choice. I had applied to several universities upon graduation, all of them in the U.S., except one, the LSE. I had a very good grade point […]