WRITER

Julia Alvarez

1950 - Today

Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is an American New Formalist poet, novelist, and essayist. She rose to prominence with the novels How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and Yo! (1997). Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Julia Alvarez has received more than 567,564 page views. Her biography is available in 22 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 20 in 2019). Julia Alvarez is the 6,116th most popular writer (down from 5,452nd in 2019), the 10,313th most popular biography from United States (down from 9,060th in 2019) and the 768th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

570k
Page Views (PV)
43.23
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
22
Languages Editions (L)
2.04
Effective Languages (L*)
3.71
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

In the Time of the Butterflies

Fiction, Women revolutionaries, History

It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas―“The Butterflies.” In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters―Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé―speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of political oppression.

1994

Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--The American Experience

freedom, selfhood, self-fulfilment

1999

In the Time of the Butterflies

American literature

2005

Yo!

Fiction, Dominican Americans, Dominican Americans in fiction

"I've been asked if this novel is a sequel to How The García Girls Lost Their Accents. Not at all. The García family and their immigration to the USA were the focus of the first novel. In this novel, the character of Yolanda serves as a sort of catalyst to bring forth stories from friends, family members, strangers who have a score to settle with her. In the course of telling their stories, these characters often reveal more about their own yos ("I" in Spanish) than about Yo." via http://www.juliaalvarez.com/novels/

1997

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Sisters, Dominican Americans, Fiction

It\'s a long way from Santo Domingo to the Bronx, but if anyone can go the distance, it\'s the Garcia girls. Four lively latinas plunged from a pampered life of privilege on an island compound into the big-city chaos of New York, they rebel against Mami and Papi\'s old-world discipline and embrace all that America has to offer.

1992

Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--Gold Level

British and irish drama, Classical Literature, Conflict of generations

2002

In the Time of the Butterflies

American literature

2005

In the Time of the Butterflies

Fiction, Women revolutionaries, History

1994

Prentice Hall Literature--Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes--Gold Level

British and irish drama, Classical Literature, Conflict of generations