In 2010 when she was 29 years old, Sandra Alongi, a computer scientist by training, decided to change her life and traveled the world while focusing on her passion for animals. 14 years later, Sandra took up the pen to tell her story. “I did it in the guise of Selena who decides to leave her very metro-work-sleep daily life to travel around the world”, explains the Houdinoise who, a few years ago in yet another life, launched the first cat bar in Louviers. “She will go to conquer her dreams but also to meet animals. Obviously, everything is not going to go as planned and she will encounter some setbacks, some disillusionment, but she will learn to develop, try to heal herself and find her own life mission.”
An autobiographical novel
A fictionalized story although largely auto-biographical that the Louviéroise decided to share with others. “I stopped the cat bar adventure during covid and so I had a lot of time to think. I then started writing my story on a Facebook page dedicated to this. I really wanted to share my life experience with others in order to, why not, inspire other people. It was also for my son that I wrote this book. You never know what can happen in life and I wanted to leave him a trace of me, of my passage in his life.”
In 2018, Sandra Alongi launched the region’s first cat bar.
It took four years for Louviéroise’s first novel to come out of the press. “I took my time because I absolutely wanted to convince a publishing house to publish me. I could have gone the route of self-publishing, which is still commonly done, but that would have been a last resort. In the end, I found a publishing house that was willing to trust me and it is, I hope, not yet finished because a sequel to the first volume is already being written..”
Last weekend, La Louviéroise was signing at the prestigious Brussels Book Fair. “It’s quite incredible, when my first novel had only been out a few days, to find myself in such a place at the same time as Amélie Nothomb or Séléna Juliano…”
“Conquering My Dreams” was published by Poussière de Lune.
