Chapter 1: Running Away from Rio

As I sat at the café with my friends, they had no idea that they’d never see me again. But I knew.

That summer night the gang had gathered as usual—arguing, laughing, and sipping beers around tables on the cobblestone patio of Amarelinho da Cinelandia. While my chums chatted I found it difficult to concentrate, instead trying to fix the scene in my mind, memorizing my friends’ faces and the Praça Floriano—something to hold on to for the future. I stared up at the café, the graceful ochre building which curved around the corner of the block. It had been the setting of a half century’s worth of political and intellectual debate—talk of revolution, talk of dreams.

My compatriots were college students with grand dreams of their own for Brazil’s future and I was their young protégé. As a teenager I had big dreams…