Dear Ana
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Dear Ana, is a heartfelt visual and lyrical manifestation about the life of Ana, the grandmother of the author, Leticia Valverdes’.
This extraordinary award-winning project took Leticia on a journey back to her grandmother’s motherland, Portugal. There it resulted in a magical collaboration with the inhabitants of Ana’s birthplace, the village of Mundão.
Photography interspersed with poetic text, cyanotypes, and votive offerings. This personal story explores transgenerational trauma, longing, migration, and the experiences when divided between two cultures.
A hundred years on, as similar stories are being told all over the world, it is the perfect time to share in this story.
Ana originally went to Brazil as a child and never returned to her motherland. Whilst dying from Alzheimer’s in Brazil, she started to believe she still had friends in her place of birth.
Leticia went to find those imaginary friends and invited them to write her a postcard. With passion, the villagers wrote postcards to Ana. They depicted real and fictional events in their own words and with unique photos. As they embarked on this journey together, they each became the fictional friends that Ana believed she had whilst dying with Alzheimer’s in Brazil.
The work was a transformational experience on a very personal level, and Leticia has even discovered relatives she never knew she had.
Enjoy this rare glimpse into the multi-cultural lives of the villagers of Mundão and Ana, the Grandma of Leticia the Author, a beautiful and rare cultural experience.
Photography: Leticia Valverdes.
Text: Leticia Valverdes, Octavia Bright and Ângela Ferreira.
Book Design & Creative Direction: Billie Temple.
Published by: Hurtwood Press Ltd
Prints size: 230mm X 160mm with a 10mm white border. The printed area is 210 X 140
Print paper: 204 pp, bound in fine linen emboss wibalin with foil blocking and printed endpapers.
Pre-orders will be dispatched from 3rd November 2021