Courage and tenderness

Courage and Tenderness is like a puzzle of memories, desires, dreams and hopes. Above all, pieces of broken dreams that delusion recomposes into what could have been or perhaps could still be. It is a self-fiction novel that talks about love and heartbreaks, about the struggle to get rid of false truths and securities and to let the soul fly free with the wind and brave against injustices. It is based on stories from various sagas during the second half of the 20th century. You will feel in the Basque Country the dilemmas of armed nationalism. You will peek into Zimbabwe's spiritual connection with ancestors through traditional medicine. You will delve into the island of La Gomera, the dark chieftains and the brave initiatives of alternative ways of life. You will explore Sierra Leone, the tragedy of female circumcision and war and its links to the black market for diamonds. You will be able to imagine India and the lives of street children in Calcutta, castes and Buddhist spirituality. You will visit South Africa, the cruelty of apartheid and child trafficking. You will also visit Brazil and the struggles of the landless movement, Bolivia and the right to water, the United States and the tentacles of power, along with the innovations of Silicon Valley, the kibbutz of Israel, the intrigues of the Vatican, the blood-money in secret bank accounts in Switzerland and many other places where the characters of this novel written with passion shed their courage and tenderness. You will witness conversations with key figures from those decades such as Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Princess Diana, Pope John Paul II, his successor Ratzinger, as well as the scientists who pioneered the knowledge of the AIDS virus. But above all you will enter the souls of many anonymous heroes who bravely pour out their tenderness to the universe every day. The stories share from different experiences, beliefs, places and challenges thread into the tragedy of the AIDS pandemic that devastated the world at the end of the 20th century, deepening the gap between the rich and the poor, the right to live of some vs. the oblivion of the slow agony of most. Gaps created by greed and patents that shielded knowledge for the privilege of some and the obscene wealth of a few. The courage of those who suffered or beheld such extreme injustice in the remote corners of Africa is intertwined with the vision of a New Humanity that transcends the cruel barbed wire of nations, religions and property, and that reverses the cruel damage to Mother Earth through empathy with all forms of life and thus, harmony in and of Humanity.