Thursday, March 26, 2009

Great Events in Aztlán del Norte - NMMA shines


Josefina Lopez,
acclaimed author of the play and successful film Real Women Have Curves, presents her latest work
Hungry Woman in Paris

THE BOOK
A journalist and activist, Canela believes passion is essential to life; but lately passion seems to be in short supply. It has disappeared from her relationship with her fiancé, who is more interested in controlling her than encouraging her. It's absent from her work, where censorship and politics keep important stories from being published. And while her family is full of outspoken individuals, the only one Canela can truly call passionate is her cousin and best friend Luna, who just took her own life.


Canela can't recover from Luna's death. She is haunted by her ghost and feels acute pain for the dreams that went unrealized. Canela breaks off her engagement and uses her now un-necessary honeymoon ticket, to escape to Paris. Impulsively, she sublets a small apartment and enrolls at Le Coq Rouge, Paris's most prestigious culinary institute.

Cooking school is a sensual and spiritual reawakening that brings back Canela's hunger for life. With a series of new friends and lovers, she learns to once again savor the world around her. Finally able to cope with Luna's death, Canela returns home to her family, and to the kind of life she thought she had lost forever.

THE AUTHOR

Born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico in 1969, Josefina López was five years old when she and her family immigrated to the United States and settled in East Los Angeles. Best known for co-authoring the film Real Women Have Curves, Josefina is the recipient of a number of awards and accolades, including formal recognition from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's 7th Annual "Women Making History" banquet in 1998 and a screenwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council in 2001.

She, along with Real Women Have Curves co-author George La Voo, won the Humanitas Prize for Screenwriting in 2002, The Gabriel Garcia Marquez Award from L.A. Mayor in 2003, and the Artist-in-Residency grant from the NEA/TCG for 2007. This is her first novel: Josefina resides in Boyle Heights and considers herself a "Renaissance Woman".

Complimentary reception 
Friday, March 27, 2009, 6 PM, Program at 7 PM 
National Museum of Mexican Art 
1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago, IL     Free 

New Exhibits:




Chicago Figurativo: 
Prints Selected from the NMMA Permanent Collection
and Quilt Me a Story: Nuestros relatos (Immigration Stories)

Reception Saturday, March 28, 2009, 6-8 PM

LOCATION:
National Museum of Mexican Art 1852 W. 19th Street, Chicago, IL 

Lisa Alvarado

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