A WYNDHAM Vale resident’s passion for trying to understand history has led to him becoming an internationally published author.
Joao Canoquena, who writes under the alias Don Jamasco, has written a story about the life of a medical student from Angola who leaves his family behind to study in Australia.
The book, which took three years to research and about three months to write, is being published in South Africa.
Canoquena, who came to Australia from Angola in 1993, says The Impudence of Narcissism is based on the Angolan civil war which flared up in the late 1990s.
“In the story, the young student leaves Angola on the eve of the first presidential election since 1995 after getting a scholarship to study medicine in Sydney.
“It is about what happens to his parents during the civil war and the international interests in his country.”
Canoquena says the book is loosely based on the experiences of volunteers in Angola who shared their diaries.
He says their memories helped him understand what life was like during the war.
“I think writing gives me the freedom to create realities,” he says. “I was able to build on their experiences and fill in the blanks.”
The book is available from Amazon.
