Mary John

Mary John/Mary/Maria is 16 and decides to write a letter to her childhood friend, Julio. He was a pal and neighbour for many years until she moved with her mom to another city. The letter is full of reminiscences and emotions, rather like a diary including her former life, the interval of change, and her new life in her new surroundings.

Written from the point of view of a woman who is neither child nor adult, the book follows the protagonist as she finds her identity both physically and emotionally. She is becoming a woman, and her body is changing accordingly. This is the natural move in her life. The literal move takes her to a new neighbourhood, a new school and new friends. While her time with Julio in the square where they both once lived is treasured, she eventually realizes that it is in the past and she needs to move on.

The dialogue in the novel is realistic and helps move the story along quickly. The writer’s emotions also speed by as she can be sad, funny and angry - all within the space of a page or two. These ups and downs are true to life and make the main character more understandable and believable.

Ana Pessoa was born in Lisbon in 1982 and now lives and works as a writer and translator in Brussels. Mary John was translated from the Portuguese by Rahul Bery and Daniel Hahn. The beauty of the story is that the themes of coming-of-age and finding your identity are universal so the novel could be set in any country and in any era. Aside from a few mentions of Portuguese culture and traditions, Mary John is really a global and timeless story.

Illustrations by Bernardo P. Carvalho on the cover and inside the book are dark blue and white, perhaps indicating the fact that the main character is sometimes described as ‘melancholy’. The illustrations are in the style of a comic book and add both information and emotion to the story.

Mary John is about childhood, first love, maturing, and finding your way in the world, and Pessoa’s novel is one that will ring true with readers of either gender. It will mirror events in the lives of young adult readers, and older readers will see their younger selves in its pages.