Inspired by a true story Stained Glass takes the reader on an epic journey from small-town Brazil in the 1970s to contemporary London as Lucas de Moraes struggles to escape a traumatic childhood and grasp the chance to build a new life as an artist in London. The novel opens with Lucas now a successful abstract painter in London putting aside his vibrant colours and involuntarily drawing a picture in charcoal of a little boy hiding under a clump of banana trees. With each drawing of the boy Stained Glass returns to the Brazil of the 1970s where the revered power of the Catholic Church looms over the poverty-stricken lives of its parishioners and follows the boy’s tortuous path as he discovers the passion for line and colour that opens up a world of freedom. As drawing after drawing line the walls of his studio Lucas experiences a union of self that ultimately releases him from the chains of his past. Stained Glass is a story of self-creation and the triumph of great talent in a society intent on stamping out difference.
