The Sisterhood is Global Institute and Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños presented
Irene Vilar, author of Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict

Thursday, October 8, 2009, 6:00 PM
Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños
Centro Library
Hunter College East Building – 3rd Floor
Lexington Avenue at 68th Street
Library: (212) 772-4197

On Thursday, October 8, 2009, The Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) and Hunter College’s Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños presented Irene Vilar and her new memoir, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict

Impossible Motherhood is a heartrending expose on reproductive freedom that breaks barriers and defies stereotypes. The memoir, which will be published by Other Press on October 6, 2009, is introduced with foreword by award-winning feminist writer, activist, and SIGI founder Robin Morgan. Noted women’s rights activist Gloria Feldt wrote of the book, “Vilar’s dramatic and beautifully drawn story forces the reader to confront the power of sexuality and procreation that often is the only power a young woman perceives she owns in this world.” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Díaz wrote, “Impossible Motherhood is like a journey into a harrowing underworld but guided by Vilar’s gifts and her light we emerge in the end transformed, enlightened, and oh so alive.”

As a sixteen year old undergraduate at Syracuse University, Vilar became involved with her then 50 year old professor, whom she later married. Their union, built on submission and manipulation, ultimately ended some eleven years and twelve abortions later. Adding to dysfunction in Vilar’s life are the lingering shadows from her childhood in Puerto Rico: her mother’s suicide, her grandmother—famed incarcerated political activist Lolita Lebron's legacy, a philanderer father, and two heroin-addicted brothers.

Vilar’s patterns of addiction, as well, are troubling: as she spirals through depression, multiple suicide attempts, and fifteen abortions (twelve with her then-husband, three with another man), we are drawn into her world of shame and servility, of depression and addiction. And yet, Impossible Motherhood is at once a fragile coming of age story and a triumphant testimonial of the spirit. Vilar’s dark journey revisits the difficulties this country has with the subject of abortion and prompts a vital discussion—literary, political, social and philosophical.