An Evening with Carmen Aguirre

In conversation and siging Mexican Hooker #1: And My Other Roles Since the Revolution (Random House Canada). Co-presented by the Winnipeg International Writers Festival as part of our collaborative Spring Literary Series.

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 actor and to break away from the stereotypical roles thrust upon her—Housekeeper, Hotel Maid, Mexican Hooker #1 – all while navigating the complex paths of lust and heartbreak.

As she grew in her career, Aguirre became a writer, a director, an actor, and then a mother, but among her multi-faceted identities was another that was unbearable to embrace yet impossible to escape: the thirteen-year-old girl attacked by one of Canada’s most feared rapists. Thirty-three years after the assault that shook her world, Aguirre decided it was time to meet the man. Aguirre interweaves her account of overcoming the attack with a host of stories of life and love, telling a story of strength and survival.