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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
I can't think of a childhood further from my own, but as I read this memoir I was struck by the resilience of children, their ability to quickly adapt to their surroundings, and their understanding of what is actually going on in the adult lives around them, probably contrary to the belief of those adults. Carmen Aguirre's story is gripping, and I learned a lot about the politics of South America from a different perspective than the stories I read in the newspapers in my own youth. In the latter half of the story, part of me thought she was crazy for not just taking the easy route of a life in Canada, and the other part admired her for her dedication to her cause of justice and human struggle.
Absolutely fantastic book.
My one and only complaint is that I wish that it had more pictures (though I understand that maybe there aren’t many)
A coming of age story with an intense political background, this book has something for everyone.
My one and only complaint is that I wish that it had more pictures (though I understand that maybe there aren’t many)
A coming of age story with an intense political background, this book has something for everyone.
An engaging story with a realistic sense of memories of the people who wander in and out of your life.
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
Born a week after the death of Che Guevara, Carmen Aguirre was always destined to become a revolutionary. After Pinochet's violent coup in Chile in 1973, her family is forced to flee to Canada. And when, a few years later, the Chilean resistance calls for exiled activists to return to fight the cause, Carmen's mother heeds the call. Determined to make mini revolutionaries of her two daughters, she takes them with her - and so Carmen's double life begins. Posing as a westernised teenager by day, at night she is drilled in surveillance techniques, cryptography and subterfuge, not to mention political theory and revolutionary history. It is a time of high excitement, but also one of fear and paranoia, of who to trust, and who to fear.
From Pinochet's repressive rule in Chile, to Shining Path Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia to post-Malvinas Argentina, this is a darkly comic coming-of-age memoir is a rare first-hand account of a life as teenage revolutionary. It is also the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her commitment to the cause with her very unrevolutionary new interests in boys, music and fashion.
1/5: dressed as an all-American teenager, Carmen returns to Latin America with her mother and sister to join the underground, and a new life of subterfuge and danger.
2/5: After a perilous visit to her beloved Chile, Carmen finds herself questioning her commitment to the cause.
3/5: when the situation in Bolivia becomes to dangerous, Carmen finds herself in rural Argentina in the depths of a harsh winter.
4/5: a mission across the Andes goes perilously wrong, and Carmen is forced to risk all.
5/5: secret police, paranoia and mistrust, as the resistance begins to falter...
Author: Carmen Aguirre is a playwright and actor, now living in Vancouver.
Reader: Mia Soteriou.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015yt3s
Born a week after the death of Che Guevara, Carmen Aguirre was always destined to become a revolutionary. After Pinochet's violent coup in Chile in 1973, her family is forced to flee to Canada. And when, a few years later, the Chilean resistance calls for exiled activists to return to fight the cause, Carmen's mother heeds the call. Determined to make mini revolutionaries of her two daughters, she takes them with her - and so Carmen's double life begins. Posing as a westernised teenager by day, at night she is drilled in surveillance techniques, cryptography and subterfuge, not to mention political theory and revolutionary history. It is a time of high excitement, but also one of fear and paranoia, of who to trust, and who to fear.
From Pinochet's repressive rule in Chile, to Shining Path Peru, dictatorship-run Bolivia to post-Malvinas Argentina, this is a darkly comic coming-of-age memoir is a rare first-hand account of a life as teenage revolutionary. It is also the story of a young girl trying to reconcile her commitment to the cause with her very unrevolutionary new interests in boys, music and fashion.
1/5: dressed as an all-American teenager, Carmen returns to Latin America with her mother and sister to join the underground, and a new life of subterfuge and danger.
2/5: After a perilous visit to her beloved Chile, Carmen finds herself questioning her commitment to the cause.
3/5: when the situation in Bolivia becomes to dangerous, Carmen finds herself in rural Argentina in the depths of a harsh winter.
4/5: a mission across the Andes goes perilously wrong, and Carmen is forced to risk all.
5/5: secret police, paranoia and mistrust, as the resistance begins to falter...
Author: Carmen Aguirre is a playwright and actor, now living in Vancouver.
Reader: Mia Soteriou.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015yt3s
What an exhilarating read. Very fast paced. I got realy confused with all the events that were happening since it was 10 years all packed into 300 pages, but it was still fun. Aguirre's story is just amazing.