She begins with the poem "Bilingual Sestina," an account of leaving the Dominican Republic to enter a new land of strange language and cultural. The poems, organized into five sections, lyrically follow Alvarez through her journeys as a Latina immigrant. The Other Side/El Otro Lado, Alvarez's second collection of poems, was published in 1995. What we remember most is not the harshness of the times but the Butterflies themselves, along with a delicious flavor of their homeland." In 1999 Showtime produced the film version of In the Time of the Butterflies. Especially noteworthy is her ability to maintain an equilibrium between the political and the human, the tragic and the lyrical. Upon its publication, Kay Pritchett noted in World Literature Today, "With In the Time of the Butterflies a superb, heartrending story, Julia Alvarez has again displayed her fine talent as a novelist. Revered for their martyrdom, they are known in the Dominican Republic as las mariposas, meaning the butterflies, which served as their code name during the resistance. In 1994 Alvarez published her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, a 300-page fictional account of the lives of three sisters, Patria, Minerva, and Maria Terese (Mate) Mirabal, who were assassinated in 1960 during the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship, just four months after Alvarez and her family had fled the country. Alvarez received high praise for How the García Girls Lost Their Accent Ilan Stavans in Commonweal referred to it as a "delightful novel, a tour de force that holds a unique place in the context of the ethnic literature from which it emerges." The story, which covers a 33-year span, examines the struggles of the girls-turned-women as they attempt to reestablish their identity after leaving their privileged social standing in the Dominican Republic to forge new lives as immigrants in the United States. Like Alvarez's family, the García family consists of four sisters, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia. In many ways a fictional account of Alvarez's own experiences, the book is a series of 15 interrelated stories about a family from the Dominican Republic who immigrates to the United States. “Alvarez’s honest grappling with her caught-between-two-cultures experience is compelling.In 1991 she published her first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. “Fascinating, exhaustively researched.”- The Washington Post “ brings a critical eye to long-held myths… Each page is a love song to the cultural ties that bind generations of women from a diverse group of countries.”- Chicago Sun-Times “A journey into experiencing a vital, exuberant ritual of modern Latino life… As an author, Alvarez is a terrific tour guide.”- The Seattle Times Alvarez’s novelistic eye makes Once Upon a Quinceañera an intimate, intoxicating read.”- San Francisco Chronicle “Una novela con un tremendo poder… un libro bello y valiente.”- West Coast Review of Books “Maravilloso… una narración enriquecedora… entrelaza hábilmente la realidad y la ficción hasta alcanzar un sobrecogedor clímax.”- Newsweek “Un regalo de amor sinfónico y espléndido… un magnífico tesoro para todas las culturas y todos los tiempos… una novela que celebra la corriente de vida que fluye entre las mujeres, conectándolas y dándolas coraje para luchar por la justicia y la resistencia, y corazones para amar y perdonar libremente… Julia Alvarez es una escritora asombrosa.”- St. Alvarez nos hace un regalo cargado de rara generosidad y coraje.”- The San Diego Union-Tribune “Un libro importante… emocionalmente sobrecogedor.
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