Julia Alvarez

Latina novelist Alma Huebner is suffering from writer's block and is years past the completion date for yet another of her bestselling family sagas. Her husband, Richard, works for a humanitarian organization dedicated to the health and prosperity of developing countries and wants her help on an extended AIDS assignment in the Dominican Republic. But Alma begs off joining him: the publisher is breathing down her neck. She promises to work hard and follow him a bit later. The truth is that Alma is seriously sidetracked by a story she has stumbled across. It's the story of a much earlier medical do-gooder, Spaniard Francisco Xavier Balmis, who in 1803 undertook to vaccinate the populations of Spain's American colonies against smallpox. To do this, he required live "carriers" of the vaccine. Of greater interest to Alma is Isabel Sendales y G mez, director of La Casa de Exp sitos, who was asked to select twenty-two orphan boys to be the vaccine carriers. She agreed-- with the stipulation that she would accompany the boys on the proposed two-year voyage. Her strength and courage inspire Alma, who finds herself becoming obsessed with the details of Isabel's adventures. This resplendent novel-within-a-novel spins the disparate tales of two remarkable women, both of whom are swept along by machismo. In depicting their confrontation of the great scourges of their respective eras, Alvarez exposes the conflict between altruism and ambition. Julia Alvarez's new novel, Afterlife, is available now.

MILLY KAUFMAN ES una adolescente estadounidense com n y corriente que vive en el estado de Vermont hasta que un estudiante nuevo llamado Pablo llega a su escuela secundaria. Su acento ex tico, su extra o sentido de la moda y el inter s intenso que Milly despierta en l hacen que ella enfrente su identidad de ni a adoptada del pa s natal de Pablo. A medida que su relaci n crece, Milly decide emprender un viaje lleno de valent a de regreso a su pa s natal y en el camino descubre que la historia de su nacimiento est entrelazada con la historia de un pa s que se recupera de una brutal historia marcada por la dictadura y la corrupci n pol tica. La galardonada autora Julia Alvarez teje una conmovedora historia que examina la adopci n entre culturas al describir la b squeda de una adolescente por encontrar qui n es ella exactamente, s lo para descubrir que ella es --de manera maravillosa y misteriosa-- muchas cosas.

A story based on actual events evokes the horror of the Dominican Republic under dictator General Trujillo, as three sisters die in a jeep "accident."

Yolanda Garcia is taking a trip to the Dominican Republic to revisit the country where she was born, and which her family was forced to flee for New York when she was a child. Previously privileged and wealthy, the family finds it hard to adjust to immigrant life in the Bronx, particularly their tough old-world father, Papi. As they try immerse themselves in the American way of life, Yolanda and her three sisters begin to rebel against Papi's traditions and values, each in their own way. But, however the girls may iron the curls from their hair and blend their Hispanic accents to fit in, they will always see the world through Dominican eyes. Now Yolanda needs to return one more time, to recover forgotten memories and remember that part of her she lost.

Set in the Dominican Republic, the legend of the ciguapas, creatures who live in caves in the sea, turns into reality for one family when they happen upon Guapa, a young ciguapa, on land as she searches for food in the late evening hours. Reprint.

En un isla no muy lejana, en una poca no muy distante, hab a una tribu de criaturas llamadas ciguapas. Viv an en frescas cuevas azules en el fondo del mar y sal an a la tierra solamente de noche en busca de alimentos. Afortunadamente, ten an un secreto que las proteg a de los seres humanos: ten an los pies al rev s, as nadie pod a seguirles las huellas. Pero una vez, casi descubren su secreto . . . La galardonado escritora Julia Alvarez teje un cuento m gico sobre una valiente y aguerrida ciguapa llamada Guapa, cuya curiosidad y gusto por los mangos y los pastelitos--casi le cuesta la libertad a su tribu. Complementado por las exquisitas ilustraciones de Fabian Negrin, este cautivador relato, basado en una leyenda dominicana, permanecer en el recuerdo del lector.

An endearing family story from the international bestselling author of How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies "This twist on a classic story demonstrates that difficult transitions can be eased by new connections. Or a possibly magical aunt." --The New York Times Book Review Moving to Vermont after his parents split, Miguel has plenty to worry about T a Lola, his quirky, carism tica, and maybe magical aunt makes his life even more unpredictable when she arrives from the Dominican Republic to help out his Mami. Like her stories for adults, Julia Alvarez's first middle-grade book sparkles with magic as it illuminates a child's experiences living in two cultures.

Yolanda Garcia--su apodo es Yo--ha demostrado que es una escritora con una muy exitosa primera novela cuyos "personajes" son su familia, sus amigos y sus amantes. Mientras Yo goza de su celebridad, sus seres queridos se encuentran "desnudos" y reconocibles ante el mundo en su nueva vida publica. Cual es el resultado? Aquellos que fueron "victimizados por la ficcion" quieren contar su lado de la historia. Y asi mismo lo hacen en esta. La nueva novela de Julia Alvarez, alegre, conmovedora y bien concebida, Yo se trata del conflicto entre el arte y la realidad, el intelecto y las emociones, y el aculturamiento en los Estados Unidos y sus propias raices dominicanas. Aqui, las tres hermanas de Yo, su mama y su papa, sus abuelos, tias, tios, primos y esposos protagonizan sus versiones de la verdadera vida de Yo. Alvarez hace que les creamos a todos y la indomable Yo, cuyo impulso creativo esta arraigado en sus recuerdos infantiles y sus dos contrastantes culturas.

An exploration of Latino-Caribbean literature written in the United States. Writers whose works are examined include: Julia Alvarez; Judith Ortiz Cofer; Victor Hernandez Cruz; Franklin Gutierrez; Cristina Garcia; Oscar Hijuelos; Carolina Hospital; Rosario Morales; and others.

The New York Times Book Review has praised Alvarez's fiction as "powerful...beautifully captures the experience of the new immigrant's doorway where a memory is not yet the past and the future is still a dream." These same qualities characterize her poetry--from the "Making Up the Past" poems, which explore a life of exile as lived by a young girl, to "The Joe Poems," a series of beautifully sensual and funny love poems that celebrate a middle-aged romance. The collection culminates in the poem of the title: the twenty-one-part epic about the poet's return to her native Dominican Republic, and to the internal affirmation of the conflict and the last one that the trip caused. Innovation and bold invention, the interaction of sound, the senses, and the rhythm of two languages, all characterize Julia Alvarez's art in transforming precious memory into unforgettable poetry La revisi n del New York Times Book Review ha elogiado la ficci n de Alvarez como "poderosa...captura maravillosamente la experiencia del umbral del nuevo inmigrante donde no est todav a una memoria el pasado y el futuro sigue siendo un sue o." Estas mismas calidades caracterizan su poes a-desde sus poemas en "Making Up the Past," los cuales exploran una vida del exilio, seg n vivido por una muchacha joven, hasta los poemas de "The Joe Poems," una serie de poemas maravillosamente sensuales y divertidos acerca de la celebraci n del amor a la mediana edad. La colecci n culmina en el poema del t tulo: una pica colecci n de veinti n partes sobre el regreso de la poeta a su Rep blica Dominicana nativa y a la afirmaci n interna del conflicto ocasionado por su ltimo viaje. La innovaci n y la invenci n, la interacci n del sonido, el sentido, y el ritmo de dos idiomas, todas caracterizan el arte de Julia lvarez al transformar memoria preciosa en poes a inolvidable.

Homecoming is Alvarez's first published collection of poetry, a work of great subtlety and power in which the young poet returned to her old-world childhood in the Dominican Republic. Now this revised and expanded edition adds thirteen new poems. Long before her award winning novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, and In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez was writing poetry that gave a distinctive voice to the Latina woman and helped give to American letters a vibrant new literary form. These more recent writings are still deeply autobiographical in nature, but written with the edgier, more knowing tone of a woman who has seen, and survived, more of life. Wonderfully lucid and engaging, toned with deep emotionality and a wry observation of life, the poems of Julia Alvarez stand next to her fiction to both delight us and give us lessons in living and loving.

A story based on actual events evokes the horror of the Dominican Republic under dictator General Trujillo, as three sisters die in a jeep "accident"