One of B.C.'s leading new voices on old-school perspectives on HIV-AIDS is coming to Prince George.
Scholar, social commentator, and author Francisco Ibez-Carrasco will hold court at Books and Company tonight. He will read from his soon-to-be-released book Taking It Raw and field the ensuing discussion about the modern state of social awareness about the disease that reshaped society in the 1980s and '90s.
"Let me be your postmodern Sheherezade and read you a couple of stories from the memoir book coming up next September from Transgress Press," he said. "The 15 first guests will get a free latte."
When he won the The Canadian Working Group on HIV and Rehabilitation's 2010 Award of Excellence in HIV and Rehabilitation, the CWGHR said "Francisco is an exceptional leader and has contributed significantly to the field of HIV and rehabilitation. Francisco's outstanding qualities include his enthusiasm, innovation and collaboration when it comes to rehabilitation and people living with HIV. He continually pushes boundaries, weaving the concept of HIV, disability and rehabilitation into all aspects of his work."
He contracted HIV shortly after arriving in Canada in 1985 from his native Chile. Doctors told him at the time he would likely be dead within 10 years. In 1994, he told the Daily Xtra gay-focused newspaper, he started to write and intended "writing myself slowly but very gently into my demise."
His writing and his health carried on. Now he is on stage in Prince George to talk about how society has forgotten the disease his body won't ever forget, and is still lurching throughout all walks of modern life.
Ibez-Carrasco will be at the downtown bookstore from 5:30 to 6:30.
