Hungry Woman in Paris
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What are the different types of hunger Canela experiences throughout the novel? How does she satisfy her hunger?
What is the significance placed by Canela—and many young women in the United States—on turning thirty?
When applying to school, Canela tells the admissions woman that she wants to open a French restaurant in the United States so that people can experience French culture. Do you agree that food communicates culture? Why or why not? If so, then how does food communicate culture?
Do you think Canela’s journey to France is an act of courage, fear, or both?
How does Canela’s experience in France fuel her to return to Los Angeles to continue fighting for what she believes in? What did she discover—or rediscover—while in Paris to enable her to do this?
What role does diabetes play in the lives of Canela, her mother, and Luna?
Compare and contrast Canela’s expatriate experience with that of other famous American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, or Mark Twain.
Guía de lector
1.Compare la experiencia de Canela de ser inmigrante en los Estados Unidos con su experiencia en Francia. ¿Ha vivido Ud. en otro país? ¿Cómo compara su experiencia con la de Canela?
2.Siga la relación romántica y sexual de Henry y Canela. ¿Cómo es diferente la relación con Henry a las relaciones con otros hombres como Armando e Yves?
3.¿Por qué tiene tanta hambre Canela? ¿Y por qué está tan deprimida? ¿Cree Ud. que hay solo una razón o muchas razones?
4.¿Cuáles son los tipos de hambres diferentes que Canela tiene en la novela? ¿Cómo las satisface?
5.¿Qué es el significado a Canela—y a muchas señoritas en los Estados Unidos—en cumplir trienta años?
6.Cuando aplica a la escuela Le Coq Rouge, Canela le dice a la mujer de la admisión que ella quiere abrir un restaurante frances en los Estados Unidos para que la gente allí pueda conocer la cultura frances. ¿Está Ud. de acuerdo que la comida comunica la cultura? ¿Por qué o por qué no? ¿Y sí la comunica, en cual manera?
7.¿Cree Ud. que el viaje de Canela a Francia es un acto de valor, de miedo o de los dos?
8.¿Después de vivir en Paris, Canela tiene la fuerza para regresar a Los Angeles y luchar para lo que le importa a ella? ¿Cómo le auyda su experiencia en Francia regresar?
9.¿Qué parte juega la diabetes en las vidas de Canela, su madre y Luna?
10.Compare la experiencia de Canela en Paris con otros escritores Americanos famosos, como Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein y Mark Twain.
About the Author
Josefina López is best known for authoring the play and coauthoring the Sundance Audience Award–winning film Real Women Have Curves. Although Real Women Have Curves is López’s most recognized work, it is only one of many literary works she has created since she began her writing career, at age seventeen. Born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in 1969, Josefina López was five years old when she and her family immigrated to the United States and settled in the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. She was undocumented for thirteen years until she obtained amnesty in 1988 and in 1995 became a United States citizen
Josefina attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, graduating in 1987. She obtained her bachelor of arts degree in film and screenwriting from Columbia College, in Chicago, in 1993. She then obtained her MFA in screenwriting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. She is currently pursuing an MA in spiritual psychology.
Josefina is the recipient of a number of other awards and accolades, including a formal recognition from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer’s seventh annual Women Making History banquet in 1998 and a screenwriting fellowship from the California Arts Council in 2001. She and Real Women Have Curves coauthor George LaVoo won the Humanitas Prize for Screenwriting in 2002, the Gabriel García Márquez Award from the Los Angeles mayor in 2003, and an artist-in-residency grant from the NEA/TCG for 2007.
Even though she is best known for the success of Real Women Have Curves, Josefina has had more than eighty productions of her plays throughout the United States. Josefina is also a poet, performer, designer, artist, and lecturer of women’s studies, and Chicano theater and film. She is the founder of the Casa 0101 Theater Art Space in Boyle Heights, where she teaches screenwriting and playwriting and nurtures a new generation of Latino artists. Josefina is presently workshopping the musical version of Real Women Have Curves, and writing her second novel, You’ll Never Eat Tacos in This Town Again, and a self-esteem book for women, Real Women Love Themselves.
Josefina lived in Paris for almost eighteen months and graduated with a diploma in cuisine from Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. She lives in Silverlake, California, with her French-American husband, Emmanuel, and her two little Fren-chican (French-Chicano) sons, Etienne and Sebastian. Hungry Woman in Paris is her first novel.