"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I wish you hadn’t left so soon. I remember when I’d come visit every summer and you’d take me on a paddle boat covered in sky blue paint that would leave slow rolling waves trailing behind as you paddled forward. I was too short of my lets to reach the paddles back then buy I was happy just to watch your strength propel us forward. I remember how we’d glide through the water and maneuver our way around small rocks that stuck up from the water as if to spy on our happiness. Eventually we’d make it to the lily pads which gathered around our painted paddle boat like clouds father in the sky. I remember how we didn’t have to say a word, our love for each other simply hung in the silence. I remember we could sit there for hours and just smell the scent of fresh pine and dank moss. I remember how you’d smile at me. I don’t want to forget.

I was introduced to you young. Well, I’m still young. But younger.

My mum loves you and your art. She wrote a piece of writing about you recently, and it’s going to be published in a compilation of those works.

When I was 8, I made a sketchbook about you. With facts and biographies, and attempts at your drawings. My teacher was impressed, my classmates laughed.

When I was 12, a year ago, we did a piece on our heroes and heroines. I chose you. I wrote more about you, in more depth now, and more about your life. Again, my teacher was impressed, my classmates laughed. Not even at my work, but at the portraits you have done naked. They shuddered at some, commented that some of them were weird. They don’t understand symbolism.

I didn’t care. I kept on with my research. This time, I didn’t attempt to copy. I didn’t feel it was right, I didn’t want to do an injustice.

I don’t just find your art inspiring. I find your life inspiring, too. Your polio and your family, your education, your history with Diego.

Your spirit lives on, Frida.

Your spirit lives on.

It’s 3 A.M. I know writing this letter at such an ungodly hour won’t make any sense to you. It won’t make any sense to you even if I write at 6 in the morning or 10 in the night. However, it will make sense to me. At least that’s what I think or perhaps I would like to think like that.

Di, I love you for as long as I can remember. Of course not the kind that would make me want to make love with you. It’s the one that makes me totally comfortable to you; The one that makes me feel that you are listening to me; The one that makes me feel that you are here to hug me and make me feel okay even if you are broken up inside.

You know, writing, this letter to you, has taken me back in time to 6th Grade and those dark nights of winter and the strange city with no friend by my side. I guess, you would be happy to know that the only thing that brought me a little peace was shutting the world around me and peeking inside your world for hours. And I remember feeling ... Read more

I really thought about writing a letter to a female figure that I love, such as Jane Austen or Amelia Earhart or maybe Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn or Mary Queen os Scotts or Queen Elizabeth the First or so on, but I thought that despite loving all these women and being a strong supporter of girl power, you are the historical figure that I probably feel closest too. I sort of love Winston Churchill or others like that as well, but they wouldn’t get it, you know?You seem somehow more . . . approachable. In a good way. You’ve been through so much that I think you could understand.

When I was little, I used to be so much into Leonardo Da Vinci’s work, I enjoyed the warm colours and the round shapes and the entire Renaissance feel of it, but as I grew into something that is closer to who I am today, I started realising that it was not for me. I still enjoy it, I think his work is a masterpiece, I think he was a genius, but I don’t see all the feelings in his work, you know?And that is the point of art, after all, ... Read more