No Yogurt for the Dead

When Tiago Rodrigues’ father was in hospital during the last weeks of his life, he was regularly visited by a volunteer called Teresa. She spent time talking to patients, fighting the loneliness of illness. When Tiago visited him, his father would tell him about her. One day, he asked Tiago to bring a notebook and pen because he wanted to write a book about his experiences in the hospital. He already had a title: No Yogurt for the Dead. His father hated yogurt but had started to like it as it became part of his daily diet.

After his father died, Tiago opened the notebook to see what he had written, but there were only a few lines and spots. His hand must have been too weak—just scribbles. Later, Teresa told him that his father talked about the book all the time, wanting to combine his experience of being hospitalised with memories of his life, especially his work as a journalist. That’s when Tiago decided to write No Yogurt for the Dead, about a volunteer who listens to the stories of a dying man and about the book he never wrote.

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