Living With Violence: Conflict in Contemporary Cultures

Julia Alvarez (1950 - )

In the Time of the Butterflies

Background

• Born NYC, raised in her parents’ native Dominican Republic
• Father participated in underground movement against Trujillo’s dictatorship
• Caused family to flee back to NYC in 1960
• BA summa cum laude Middlebury College
• MFA Syracuse University
• Breadloaf School of English 1979-80

Career

• Professor of English and Creative Writing, Middlebury College, since 1988
• Married Bill Eichner 1989
• She and her husband run an organic coffee farm in the Dominican Republic
• Lives and writes in Vermont

Novels

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1991

In the Time of the Butterflies,1994

!Yo! 1997

In the Name of Salome, 2000

Non-Fiction

Something to Declare, 1998

Poetry

Homecoming, 1984

The Other Side, 1995

Selected Bibliography

“Alvarez, Julia 1950-.” (1997): 4 pages. Online. Contemporary Authors. Internet. 3 November 1997. Available: http://galenet.gale.com/

McClellan, Hilary. “In the Name of the Homeland. “ 19 July 2000. www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews

Miller, Susan. “Family Spats, Urgent Prayer: Fiction: Celebrating the strength of Latinas.” Newsweek 17 October 1994: 77.

Requa, Marny. “The Politics of Fiction.” 4 pages. Online. Internet. 3 November 1997. Available : http://www.fronteramag.com/issue5/Alvarez/

Stevens, Ilan. “Las Mariposas.” Nation 7 November 1994: 552-556.

Venegas, Margarita. “Ethnic Roots, love of storytelling fill novels of Julia Alvarez.” (21 March 1997): 2 pages. Online. Creative Loafing Online. Internet. 3 November 1997. Available: http://www/creativeloafing.com/savannah/newstand/s032297/books.html

Online Resources

Emory college page on Julia Alvarez

Las Mujeres Profile on Julia Alvarez