During the day, she manages 450+ world-class iGaming translators and content writers. But apparently, at night, she writes books about standing up to the government.

Ana Pereira wears many hats. From being fluent in three languages, playing football at an amateur level in her native Portugal, recently having her first book published, to currently being All-in Global’s Vendor Manager.

We caught up with her to talk about Portugal’s former dictatorship, our social responsibility to fight oppression and even the chances of her beloved Portugal ahead of their upcoming Euro 2024 clash with Turkey on Saturday.

“O mistério da noite,” has just been released. What inspired you to write it, what’s it about and how did you have time to write it combined with ‘the day job’?

In a nutshell, it’s about a small village where people mysteriously disappear during the night, hence the title (‘The mystery of the night’).

It’s about following your dreams. It’s about how fear, a lack of knowledge and people blindly following ‘the flock’ (of sheep) allows regimes to control the people and how it needs someone to stand up to it all or else we’re all heading for the edge of the cliff. Is the government the enemy? Or are we our own enemy?

It’s all open to individual interpretation, so if people want to draw parallels between the book and real, previous dictatorial regimes, that’s up to them. Hey, I only wrote it! Joking aside, I don’t want to give too much away, as I’m hoping you’ll want to actually read it.

I can’t remember the exact day when I came up with the idea for the book or even the day when I decided I wanted to write one in the first place. But once I did, it was a project that was on the shelf (no pun intended) for years.

But around 2021-22 I was at a stage of my life where I had the time, desire and energy to finish it at last. Whereas some people may play golf or listen to music at the end of the working day, I’d put 3-4 hours a day towards working on it and that’s how I finally finished it.

It wasn’t necessarily written with commercial success (or even being published at all) in mind, it was just something I wanted to do for myself. But then I decided to have a go at getting it published and the rest is history.

You mention a need to avoid heading for the ‘edge of the cliff’. Do you mean that all of us have a social and/or moral responsibility to do our bit against government oppression? If so, how can we do that?

When governments fail by suffocating and oppressing their people, communities have a social and moral responsibility to defend their freedom and dignity. However, when an individual is helpless and ignorant, it creates an equally helpless and ignorant community. As Alex [the main character] realises, it’s up to each of us to make a stand: be critical, take risks, seek answers, and inspire your community to follow your lead. After all, a community is only as strong as the individuals making it up. We can’t expect change if we aren’t brave enough to challenge the status quo.

Whether there are direct or indirect parallels between the Fascist (Antonio) Salazar Government that ruled Portugal for almost 40 years and what’s going on in your book, is, as you say, up to everyone’s own interpretation. But in a nutshell and for those not familiar with the Salazar regime, what was it and what was it like to live under it?

It’s curious that some readers are drawing parallels between “Cerne” – the tyrannical government that controls Alex’s village – and the former Portuguese dictatorship. This dictatorship, the oppressive regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar, ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1974, severely limiting freedom, including (freedom of) speech and political activity. The government kept control over their people through fear, a ubiquitous ‘secret police’ presence, and by creating an atmosphere of oppression and conformity. The resemblance between Cerne and the Salazar regime is no coincidence: tyrants often rely on poverty, oppression, and occultation as tools of control.

The book presentation just took place at FNAC, which must have been a first for you. Based on your experience, what advice would you give would-be authors when it comes to writing a book and promoting it?

You’re going to need to have the confidence that you can write a book from start to finish. You also need the time and discipline that comes with the hard yards of writing a full novel; it’s very different to writing a newspaper article or even a short story.

The next thing you’re going to need is to be surrounded by people who give you confidence, especially when you’re lacking it yourself from time to time.

As regards promotion, it’s a sign of the times that Tik-Tok and influencers both played a part in getting the word out about it. And I worked with one who was as passionate about the book as I was and really put their heart into promoting it as best they could, so that’s played a part, too.

Yeah, the FNAC Q and A session! I’ll start by saying I can be quite an emotional and anxious person at the best of times and nothing in life quite prepares you for a whole room full of people having their eyes fixed on you and who have come there just to hear what you have to say. But I had quite a lot of friends and family in the audience, too.

That included almost the whole of the All-in team I work with, who in many cases even brought along some family members. Most of them had already read the book and had some questions prepared, just to make sure I’d have some nice questions to answer if no-one else was asking them!

That’s where the importance of support from others becomes so important.

I must admit that I did watch some videos about this sort of thing in preparation for the big day, not to mention, I’ve attended these sorts of presentations before, featuring authors I admire. I always thought ‘One day it will be me’ so it was nice when the day finally came. All in all, it gave me an idea about the dynamics behind it, the sort of questions the authors are asked and so on. So that helped.

It’s been an incredibly exciting months for you, with not only your first-ever published book but also a new role at All-In Global. Tell us about your journey from studying translation to becoming a Vendor Manager.

A good place to start is by saying that books are in my blood. My father sold books, we always read books as a family and growing up I often had my head buried in a book, so reading features in a lot of my childhood memories.

As happens with a lot of people, I was at a bit of a crossroads when it came to choosing what I wanted to do at University. My heart was telling me I should study Literature in some capacity, my head was telling me I’d have a better chance of not starving(!) if I studied something that had a more defined post-University career path. Which in this case meant studying languages, with a view to doing translations in the future.

So, a good compromise was to study ‘Languages, Literatures and Cultures’ at the University of Aveiro, which is my hometown. Portuguese was only a part of the first semester’s studies, meaning that for the remainder of it, the focus was on English and Spanish. Not just the languages themselves but also the great literary works from those countries and the countries’ culture that plays such a significant part in their literature. The clue is in the Degree’s name!

I then did a two-year master’s degree in Translations, and that was followed by a four-year spell as a professional translator.

In 2021, I joined All-in Global, originally as a Quality Assurance Manager. That involved giving detailed feedback to translators on the quality of their work and dealing with any inconsistencies regarding translated words or phrases. So that by the time the final translation is sent back to the client, it’s as perfect as it possibly can be, with no stones unturned.

What does a day in the life of a Vendor Manager look like and how does your previous experience help you on a daily basis?

It all starts with a cup of coffee – it’s mandatory!

I manage our team of translators, copywriters and proofreaders, among others.

That could involve recruiting someone with a particular skill, like a new language pair or a niche area of writing who can add another string to the All-in Global bow. Or finding someone already ‘on our books’ for a one-off project with a tight deadline.

Other tasks include giving ongoing feedback to our translators and writers and arranging training for them if required.

In four years as a translator, I saw it all before in terms of what can go wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t.

So, my experience of being on the other side of the fence, both with the successful projects and the more challenging ones, prepared me well in terms of understanding the achievements, challenges and frustrations of writers and translators. And how to deal with that.

My time as QA Manager helped me streamline processes and make everything more efficient so in a way, I was well-prepared for my current role as previous experiences were very relevant to it.

With your skillset and experience, you could be working just about anywhere you liked but you’ve now been at All-in Global for three years and look to be in it for the long haul. What do you like about All-in?

Where do I start? The company culture, the fact there isn’t really a structure, or hierarchy. Well, there obviously is and we all know our role and where we fit into things but what I mean is: it doesn’t feel that way.

If other companies want to have very rigid vertical structures, strict management and it works, good for them. But All-in is more relaxed about that sort of thing and that in turn makes us relaxed and in a better frame of mind to do what’s required of us.

When I first told colleagues about the prospect of publishing a book, everyone was incredibly supportive and proud of me. Just as an example: colleagues offered to do QA for it like they would for a regular All-in Global project but in their own time and at no cost to me. That’s the sort of support and encouragement I’m talking about.

We hear that football rivals languages as one of your biggest passions in life. Where does your love for football come from and tell us about the time you played in a tournament mostly played by men.

Yeah, football has always been around me. My family watches it, friends too. Well, the country as a whole, for that matter. Any big game, and we’re all gathered around the TV with bated breath, waiting to see what’s going to happen next.

Unlike with the book, there was a ‘Eureka!’ moment when it came to football. Or at least playing it. I was watching the 2011 Women’s World Cup final between USA and Japan (Japan won on penalties). I can remember this game so clearly! I said to my Dad ‘I wish I could play like that’. And he said ‘Well, you can. You just have to want to.’

And that was that. We approached a local girls’ team about coming to some practice sessions and it took off from there. It was a weird dynamic because some of us were teenagers or very young adults, while others were ladies 25-30 years old with jobs, husbands, kids, and responsibilities, who just loved the game and made huge sacrifices just to find the time to come to practice and play at weekends.

Were we any good? No. We lost most of the time, sometimes badly. Did we enjoy it? You bet. We loved it and that was the most important thing.

Unfortunately, I had to give it up a few years later when I needed to dedicate all my time to my University studies.

But…I did come out of retirement a couple of years ago. Over in Malta, the SiGMA Cup was about to take place, and there were some players who wanted to take part but didn’t actually belong to a team. Someone mentioned to Roy (Pedersen, All-in Global Founder) that I’d played in the past and he went around and formed a team made up of a motley crew of random players, including me.

What he didn’t mention was that it was a men’s tournament! Some teams take it dead seriously and have practiced all year for the big tournament. We met each other on the pitch for the first time five minutes before our first game started. For some reason I was nominated to be captain so had extra responsibility.

Once again, we weren’t particularly successful. But that’s missing the point.

We hear that the great USA striker and former skipper Alex Morgan inspired you to take up football. What was so special about her in your eyes?

I first heard of Alex Morgan during the 2011 Women’s World Cup. The USA team was, of course, one of the strongest around, and had amazing, talented players. Forward Morgan grabbed my attention: she was the team’s youngest player at 22, and her star was on the rise. She was talented, fast, and promising. I was 15 at the time, and it was a turning point for me: I always loved football, but it was then that I realised women could not only play, but also be successful. The likes of Morgan made me believe anything was possible… if you believe in it.

Since we’re speaking about football. One Group game down, two to go at EURO. Reflections and observations on the Czechia match and thoughts ahead of the Turkey game?

As usual, Portugal, has a lot of individual talent and showed plenty of promise in that first match, but the team needs more cohesion. The midfield seems to be solid with Vitinha and Bruno Fernandes putting in good performances on Tuesday night, but the defence must improve. We didn’t close down the Czech player (Lukáš Provod) taking a long-distance shot and paid the price as they went 1-0 up.

The finishing needs work too because we created plenty of chances and not only was the first goal an own goal, but we left it very, very late to score the winner.

Portugal dominated the first half against Czechia, but that didn’t translate into goals. Turkey will be a more interesting opponent; their game against Georgia was frenetic, and Portugal typically performs better against the stronger sides, which is a bit ironic. My prediction for Turkey vs. Portugal is 1-2 and if you fancy a wager, it’s available at around 8.5 with most bookmakers.

But 1-0, 3-2 or even 4-3 would be just as good and I’m happy to be wrong with that score prediction; as long as we win, it’s fine by me!