Product Description Gabriela Brimmer (1947-2000), born with cerebral palsy, communicated largely by typing with her left foot on an electric typewriter, and by using that foot to point at letters and numbers on an "alphabet board" at the base of her wheelchair. Raised by her mother, Sari, and Mexican caregiver Florencia Morales Sanchez, Gaby gained admission to Mexico City public schools, attended the prestigious National Autonomous University of Mexico, and became a key figure in launching Mexico's disability rights movement. With the text structured by renowned writer Elena Poniatowska to alternate Gaby's voice with those of her mother and Florencia, this volume is both the memoir of an extraordinary woman and a unique and imaginative form of autobiographical writing.
Customer Reviews: Superb and Inspiring Autobiography!August 4, 2009 Rrose Selavy(Arizona USA) 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm delighted to read this fascinating autobiography (in "three voices" as the translator points out) that sets forth the life of a leading disability rights activist in Mexico.
The main part of the text consists of a "conversation" of sorts, between Gaby Brimmer, who was born with cerebral palsy and who, using her left toe, wrote and communicated and fought her way into recognition, through the help of her "two mothers." One is Florencia, the nurse who took care of Gaby, who also has a major voice in the book: born in an impoverished family in Mexico's South, Florencia brought Gaby to school and helped her in all her daily live. There's also Gaby's mother, a successful businesswoman, who constantly worries about matters such as what will happen to Gaby after she, her mother, dies. And there is Gaby's voice throughout, rebellious, funny, irreverent, indomitable.
All of this is put together by Elena Poniatowska, one of contemporary Mexico's most gifted and extraordinary writers, whose fluency and grace and ability to select the perfect analogy, are incomparable. Finally, the book contains a short memoir of Gaby by another disability rights activist who knew Gaby well, as well as a superb essay putting Mexico's disability rights discourse into the context of disability theory world-wide. A useful historical summary describing the development of disability rights activism in Mexico is also included. The translation by Trudy Balch is first-rate, beautifully capturing the different voices of all those involved in this struggle for rights and recognition which involves some of the most serious ethical debates of our time.
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