Carmen Aguirre

"A gripping, darkly comic first-hand account of a young underground revolutionary during the Pinochet dictatorship in 1980s Chile.

Memoirs of a Revolutionary Daughter

Something Fierce

A stunning follow-up to Carmen Aguirre's bestselling and Canada Reads-winning first book, Something Fierce. Mexican Hooker #1 is a powerful, heartfelt and grippingly honest memoir of finding meaning in life and one's voice as an artist, and of developing the strength to confront and overcome a childhood trauma. Carmen Aguirre has lived many lives, all of them to the full. At age six she was a Chilean refugee adjusting to life as a Latina in North America. At eighteen she was a revolutionary dissident married to a generous-hearted man she couldn't fully love. In her early twenties she fought to find her voice as an actress and to break away from the stereotypical roles thrust upon her--Housekeeper, Hotel Maid, Mexican Hooker #1--all the while navigating the complex paths of lust and heartbreak. As she grew in her career, Aguirre became a writer, a director, an actress, and then a mother, but alongside her many multi-faceted identities was another that was unbearable to embrace yet impossible to escape; that of the thirteen-year-old girl attacked by one of Canada's most feared rapists. Thirty-three years after the assault, Aguirre decided it was time to meet the man who changed her life. Fierce, funny and enlightening, Aguirre interweaves her account of coming to grips with the attack that shook her world with a host of stories of life and love. From her passionate but explosive relationship with a gorgeous Argentinian basketball player to the all-consuming days at drama school in Vancouver; from the end of the Chilean revolutionary dream to life among the Chicano theatre scene of Los Angeles; from the child who was made the victim of a terrible crime to the artist who found the courage to face her assailant, Aguirre tells a story of strength and survival that will leave you speechless.

Art, Love and Forgiveness After Trauma

Mexican Hooker #1

Dark comedy about Chilean refugees who arrive in Vancouver in 1974 after Pinochet's coup. Cast of 12 men and women.

The Refugee Hotel

Looks at the experiences of Carmen Aguirre, who fled to Canada with her family after General Augusto Pinochet's coup in Chile in 1973 and then returned five years later to become a militant in the Chilean resistance.

Carmen Aguirre

About

Books

Join the club