It was in the afternoon. I was in Oslo airport waiting for the plane to take me to Trondheim. With the book in my lap, tears were slowly running down my cheeks. I was reading about quite another airport, quite another time. The airport of Havanna in Cuba where young Nora was with her family waiting for the plane to take them, forever, from their beloved country, as refugees to a place they knew nothing about. I was reading Broken Paradise by Cecilia Samartin.
The Cuban/American writer Cecilia Samartin was in Norway last week on a book signing tour. Do you remember I told you that on the day I went to my local bookstore to have a couple of her books signed for me, I forgot my camera. It turned out to be no problem. Cecilia's most charming husband Steve was there, and as soon as he knew that I was without my camera, he offered to take a photo of me and his wife. "I will put it on our facebookpage" he told me. Last night there was an unknown email in my mailbox. From Steve.......with no topic in the topic line. Spam, I thought,and almost deleted it. Luckily my curiosity got me, I opened the email and found a message from this most charming husband Steve: "Hi Britt. I did post pictures on facebook. Thanks for coming to see Ceci - Steve"
The (most charming husband) MCH Steve gave me permission to use the photo here. Thank you Steve. Though I wonder - how did you find my email address.......
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Cecilia Samartin is very famous in Norway. Much more here than in USA where she lives I guess. I am reading Broken Paradise right now, laugh and cry with Nora and Alica and their families, and can't wait to start Mofongo, her newest book. Actually it is so fresh it is not out in English yet, only in a Norwegian translation. What do you say about that :-)
I am in Selbu, the land of the knitted Selbu mittens, for three days. A meeting. One lady came too late the first afternoon. She came over to me: "Will you believe this, I know this place quite well, but today I managed to take a wrong turn. I was miles up the valley when I suddenly realised I had missed the hotel. I have no excuse, only that I was listening to quite a book while driving" Always curious about books as I am, I had to ask: "Which book was that?"
"Mofongo by Cecilia Samartin" was the answer.
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Thank you for your writing Cecilia, and thank you for taking time to really see your readers when you do your booksignings. Thank you for being Ceci's MCH Steve, and for your third eye, the camera. I love the photo you took of me and Cecilia.
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A special thank to Jurizen Publisher for the youtube videos.
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