Bonnie Bremser

Bonnie Bremser (b. 1939), born Brenda Frazer, is a Beat writer and protofeminist figure known for her epistolary memoir Troia: Mexican Memoirs, also published in the U.K. as For Love of Ray.

Life and career Bremser was born Brenda Frazer in 1939 in Washington, D.C. She briefly attended Sweet Briar College in Virginia before dropping out to marry Ray Bremser, whom she'd met three weeks earlier. After Ray Bremser was jailed in 1963, Bonnie Bremser sent him weekly two-page letters chronicling their journey in Mexico and her experience of sex work. She has said the couple told jail authorities that the letters were business correspondence to get around a one-page personal letter maximum. Those letters later were compiled into Troia: Mexican Memoirs, originally published in 1969. The word "troia" is Italian slang, meaning "sow" or "whore," but also references Helen of Troy. Since the republishing of Troia, Bremser has also drawn recognition for her awareness of gender and race and her attitude toward those issues, which was nuanced especially for the 1950s and among the Beats.