CARMEN AGUIRRE is a Vancouver-based writer and theatre artist who has worked extensively in North and South America. She has written or co-written twenty plays, including The Refugee Hotel, which was nominated for a 2010 Dora Mavor Moore Award for best new play. Her most recent one-woman show is Blue Box. Aguirre has sixty film, TV and stage acting credits, including lead roles in the Showcase series Endgame and Quinceañera, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Something Fierce won Canada Reads in 2012, was a finalist for the Charles Taylor Prize, and was a #1 national bestseller.
Finalist for the 2017 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize (BC Book
Awards) NATIONAL BESTSELLER "In her pursuit of art in the everyday,
in Vancouver's basement theatre scene though also her own
marvellous writing so much in evidence here, Aguirre finds
expression but also a way forward--examining her own behaviour
ruthlessly, discovering kinship with First Nations, and using the
sum of these experiences to transcend the violence of a rape that
might have ruined any other child. This is extraordinary and, often
unexpectedly, beautiful reading." --Noah Richler, author of This Is
My Country, What's Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada and What We
Talk About When We Talk About War "What a bold, brave, and wise
artist Carmen Aguirre is. Despite some soul-crushing experiences in
her past, she's written a memoir that's life-affirming,
awe-inspiring, and even wickedly funny in parts. Mexican Hooker #1
has a lot to teach us about the ways of the world." --Neil Smith,
author of Boo "This book roars with a kind of courage one rarely
witnesses in this world. It is a harrowing read, horrific yet
unexpectedly--almost impossibly--tender. Carmen Aguirre will show
you what compassion truly looks like. And the final few pages will
leave you gobsmacked." --Alison Wearing, author of Confessions of a
Fairy's Daughter and Honeymoon in Purdah "How many shocks can the
body and mind endure? Carmen Aguirre has a courage and love of life
that feeds her writing. Each valuable day is of interest to her.
But again, how much pain can be absorbed without the mind
detaching? I read all Aguirre's work with fascination and a kind of
awe, but Mexican Hooker #1 takes us further inside. The shocks are
hitting us as we read." --Heather Mallick "[P]rofoundly intimate. .
. . Never less than mesmerizing." --Maclean's "Yes, this is a book
that draws tears, but Aguirre is a merciful dramatist at heart, and
so she works to move through events rather than leaving us mired in
past wounds. Her powerful heart and appetite for experience ensures
that the story, despite being one of trauma recovery, never feels
maudlin or torturous. Mexican Hooker #1 is more than brave--it is
dauntless, and Aguirre's telling of it, even in its devastating
moments, accomplishes what she set out to do: integrate it all in
order to bare her true self." --Naomi Skwarna, National Post
"Heart-stopping and indelibly beautiful, the story Aguirre tells is
exquisite and excruciating, honest and unbelievably courageous."
--Vancouver Sun "Mexican Hooker #1: And My Other Roles Since The
Revolution picks up where her celebrated memoir Something Fierce
left off. Loaded with hard lessons and painful memories, the book
revisits everything from broken oaths of silence to a face-to-face
conversation with the man who raped her." --CBC Radio "Mexican
Hooker #1 is more than just a single story and a reminder that
there's much more to this woman than her past as a teenage
revolutionary or rape survivor." --Sue Carter, Metro (Toronto)
"[Mexican Hooker #1] is funny--in spite of the raw, horrific
subject matter at its heart." --Marsha Lederman, The Globe and Mail
"In her sharply funny, deeply passionate voice, Aguirre tells
stories from her many lives--refugee, revolutionary dissident,
drama student, director, mother and sexual assault survivor." --CBC
Books
"Mexican Hooker #1 is open and raw, like Aguirre's life. Once
started, I could not put it down. . . . I admire her courage and
vulnerability, and envy her ability to bring such overwhelming
emotion and disquieting memories to the page." --Quill & Quire
"[A]n incredibly effective and beautiful memoir." --Room "[Mexican
Hooker #1 is] an engaging, terrific read. It's no wonder that drama
infuses every aspect of Carmen Aguirre's life as she's an actor and
playwright, but once you factor in revolutionary, things get ramped
up to a frantic level. . . . Stylistically the book is raw and
vibrant, bursting with energy. Sex and love are examined candidly.
Aguirre doesn't cut herself any slack and is utterly fearless, it
appears, in revealing her desires and her mistakes. And sometimes
her sexual escapades are just downright hilarious. . . . Mexican
Hooker #1 works on many engaging levels. And what is terrific is
that while it reveals many details of Aguirre's life, in particular
her coming to grips with how the rape affected her, there's no
doubt enough unwritten material to comprise another volume sometime
in the future." --The Vancouver Sun
"[Something Fierce] is a book that all but demanded a sequel. Now
we have it, and Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the
Revolution appears set to make its conversation-starting
predecessor look like a mere warm-up." --The Gazette
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