Born: 27 March 1950, United States
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Twenty-five years ago, Julia Alvarez’s “In the Time of the Butterflies” (Algonquin) made her an international sensation. The book details the lives of four sisters living under the dictatorship of the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo. Alvarez herself was born in New York City but raised in the Dominican Republic until she was 10, when her family supported an unsuccessful coup. The theme of living between two worlds permeates much of her work. Today, Alvarez is writer-in-residence at Middlebury College in Vermont.