In the neighborhoods where we grew up, the decades of the ’50s and ’60s had their own distinct identifying features and were characterized by a political and cultural constellation that diverged radically from the values and assumptions of the years that followed.

This book was not written to repeat the history of those significant events of the decades but to compose a story. Perhaps, more than anything else, it is a creation of my irresistible desire to share experiences that I believe should not and do not deserve to be lost, and additionally to preserve a past without the slightest intention of a hysterical appeal to it.

Now being mature enough for confessions and firmly believing that the pen is the language of the soul, I wanted to record the unique and unparalleled experiences of an era whose protagonists faced the relentless reality head-on, rejected external identifiers in their adherence to the obvious, and, against the rhetorical frameworks of the times, created their own distinct and entirely personal myth.