La costurera de Chanel

Cuban author Wendy Guerra will present her last novel, La costurera de Chanel/Chanel’s Seamstress, on Saturday, April 18, 2026, in two different events and venues, organized in collaboration:
-The Baker Nord Institute for the Humanities, CWRU
-Cuyahoga Public Libraries System
-Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, CWRU
-Alianza Latina/Latin Alliance, CWRU
-Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center
-Hexagon Books
-Ohio Arts Council

Please confirm your attendance by completing the form using the QR below.

Conversation with Cuban author Wendy Guerra: Professors and writers Mabel Cuesta, José Ramón Ruisánchez, and Damaris Puñales-Alpízar will talk with the author about the novel and her creative writing process. The event will be in Spanish with English translation.

MLK Library
Saturday, April 18, 2026, at 3 pm
10601 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH 44106

Book Signing: Wendy Guerra will be reading fragments of her last novel. This will be an excellent opportunity to talk with the author, know more about the novel, and get a signed copy.

Hegaxon Books
Saturday April 18, 2026, at 7 pm
2184 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights.

Summary of the book:

It’s early summer in Arcachon, a small provincial city in France, and Simone Leblanc decides to reopen the sewing studio founded by her grandmother. Channeling her creativity to remodel the premises, and with the help of Teresa, her housekeeper and confidante, she has her designs in the showroom windows in time for the new season and the shop is soon full of customers.
 
But Simone has bigger ambitions: She does away with the corset, designs lighter dresses, favors linen and cotton over silk, experiments with bathing suits, and creates simple, genre-breaking patterns. Everything changes with a summer visitor from Paris, who introduces herself as Gabrielle Chanel and, with a quick eye for talent, proposes a partnership. The result is a collaboration that will revolutionize women’s clothing and set a new standard for elegance. Chanel’s Seamstress chronicles their complicated friendship, from its beginnings in a coastal French town to the Paris of World War I, 1930s Cuba and Nazi-occupied France, as well as its unexpected outcome. Wendy Guerra blends reality and fiction, literary talent and appreciation of fashion in this fascinating portrait of two women who risked everything to follow their dreams.