«Over the years, I came in touch with books, films, and music that echoed like a scent, triggering memories of Angola and family conflicts that had been dormant within me. The son of a former combatant in the Portuguese colonial army, I was born in 1973 in a war-torn Angola, from which I would leave shortly afterwards, in January 1976, and a significant part of my past is filled with silences and absences. For this very reason, I discovered myself through the words of others, as if through them I could recover a memory of my diffuse past more coherently and richly than if I tried to do it alone. The truth is that in words that are not my own, I also discovered my voice, giving rise to this book being a patchwork of what I remember, the family memories that were passed on to me, and the memories of so many who wrote about the war in this former Portuguese colony with brushstrokes so tangential to my past. In the end, this exercise in building a particular memory of war still left some uncomfortable silences. I decided to fill many of these with my imagination because I believe that what I fictionalise today will, yet today, be as real a part of my memory as any other. Others I chose to forget for good because the silent tears of those who have memories are also eau de cologne.» Celso Braga Rosa

^{[t/n: eau de cologne here is a direct translation of água de colónia, which can also be interpreted as colony water]}

About the author
Celso Braga Rosa was born in Angola in 1973. He graduated in Anthropology from the University of Coimbra in 1999 and wrote his dissertation, Na periferia do império. Arte africana e o mercado artístico internacional [On the periphery of the empire. African art and the international art market], published in the journal e-cadernos of the University of Porto in 2007. In the artistic field, he has published short stories and poetry in the collections Tributo – Homenagem a grandes autores da literatura universal (2019), Liberdade: Antologia de poesia contemporânea  (2019), Três Quartos de Um Amor: Coletânea de cartas de amor (2019), SMS: Micro-narrativas ficcionais (2019), Entre o Sono e o Sonho: Antologia de poesia contemporânea (2018), Entre o Sono e o Sonho: Antologia de poesia contemporânea (2015) and Alicerces (2012). In 2008, he curated the photographic exhibition Luanda: Talk of the Town, which took place in the Angolan capital. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Postcolonialism and Global Citizenship at the University of Coimbra.