Saudade doesn't travel well

Between the farm and the city, childhood and adulthood, traumas and joys, a woman in search of her own identity.

"Saudade Não Viagem Bem" narrates the most impactful moments in the life of Clara, who left her family in the backlands at a young age and went to live with an aunt in the big city. With a sensitive, non-chronological narrative, we explore the main character's emotional memory, reliving with her painful childhood experiences caused by her mother's alcoholism, the strength of her grandmother, her father's unspoken affection, and the simple joys she also experienced with her family and the characters who crossed her path.

Lu Lacerda, a sensitive observer, builds striking and deeply human characters based on their everyday words and actions. Exploring the depth of folk wisdom and the enrichment provided by everyday challenges, the rural environment of her childhood is also imbued with a certain nostalgia, a time when Clara was not yet in charge of her own destiny and lived in direct contact with nature.

When she moves to the big city, we experience her aunt's harsh reception and share in her youthful discoveries. In the urban environment, she experiences her most radical experiences and reaches a new level of awareness of the world and herself. From the passion and addiction she experiences with her boyfriend, to the most intense event of her adult life: an abortion.

The narrator and protagonist, Maria Clara, filled with memories that permeate her, is constructed by two worlds and, despite her longing, doesn't idealize either of them. Aware of her own fragility, it is in her roots that she finds the strength to overcome it.

Saudade does not travel well, it carries the feeling of not belonging that accompanies us when we are displaced from our origins and, by narrating the timelessness of affections with an engaging fluency, it delicately stitches together the most beautiful and hardest memories of a life.