In the Time of the Butterflies [Paperback]

Julia Alvarez (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (1991)
• ASIN: B001AOFD5M
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (177 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,213,416 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Julia Alvarez has bridged the Americas many times. Born in New York and raised in the Dominican Republic, she is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist, author of world-renowned books in each of the genres, including How the García Girls Lost their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, and Something to Declare. She lives on a farmstead outside Middlebury, Vermont, with her husband Bill Eichner. Visit Julia's Web site here to find out more about her writing.

Julia and Bill own an organic coffee farm called Alta Gracia in her native country of the Dominican Republic. Their specialty coffee is grown high in the mountains on what was once depleted pastureland. Not only do they grow coffee at Alta Gracia, but they also work to bring social, environmental, spiritual, and political change for the families who work on their farm. They use the traditional methods of shad-grown coffee farming in order to protect the environment, they pay their farmers a fair and living wage, and they have a school on their farm where children and adults learn to read and write. For more information about Alta Gracia, visit their website.

Belkis Ramírez, who created the woodcuts for A Cafecito Story, is one of the most celebrated artists in the Dominican Republic.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 95 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Literary Challenge, August 1, 2003

By 

Alan Cambeira "author of Azucar's Trilogy" (Dominican Republic, author of Tattered Paradise...Azucar's Trilogy Ends) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (Paperback)

By means of the sharpened scalpel of fiction, Julia Alvarez carves and shapes the central characters in this difficult and delicate novel as subversive agents who see themselves obligated by fate to participate in the ultimate demise of an oppressive regime. Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and Dedé, each one in her distinct fashion, break through the tyrannical grip that holds sway over an entire island population for thirty-one nightmarish years. Alvarez is at her absolute best here, far surpassing the previously successful HOW THE GARCÍA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS. Even the more recent SALOMÉ, in my view, doesn't come across as powerfully (especially for those readers unfamiliar with Dominican cultural history). IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES is a masterful work that illustrates the perniciousness of political oppression in every aspect of a society, written in a language of turbulent calmness. As a Dominican myself who experienced first hand the unspeakable horrors of the Trujillo Dictatorship, I admit honestly that Alvarez has presented brilliantly the case of repression and heroism more formidably than any other writer. She has officially immortalized las hermanas Mirabal as national heroines.

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I also lived Trujillo, December 9, 2000

By 

Adria P. Chizmar (Concord, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (Paperback)

As a Dominican who lived under Trujillo's dictatorship until his ovethrowing in 1961, I was very taken by Ms. Alvarez' book. Her portrayal of Dominican family life is accurate and lifelike. I remember the trial for the murder of the Mirabal sisters--it was the first televised trial in the history of the D.R. I am also a niece by marriage of General Federico Fiallo who is portrayed in the book, and although as an adult I know he committed heinous crimes under Trujillo's orders, I also want to say that in his private life he was a kind man to his nieces and nephews. He committed suicide when they came to arrest him at his home. All around me when I was a child was the specter of Trujillo and his spies and enforcers. The terror we citizens endured was quite real although we managed to live normal everyday lives. His hand was everywhere. Ms. Alvarez book put into perspective many things that from the point of view of a child you see but fail to digest.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling and gripping . . . thank you, Julia Alvarez!!!, August 13, 2001

By 

Azra Mandzuka "amanh" (Des Plaines, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (Paperback)

Julia Alvarez does a brilliant job blending fact and fiction. The story of the Mirabal sisters is brought to life by Alvarez's extraordinary style of writing. I just can't find the right words to describe this book. It kept me on the edge of my seat, unable to put it down, wanting to read more and more. At times it is humorous and delightful, at others sad and horrific.

It is written from the perspective of each sister: the pious and religious Patria (the oldest), the strong and fiesty Minerva (I love her best), the sensitive yet willful Maria Theresa, and Dede - the one who lived. The one who realized her strength and independence despite her doubts. Even though it is Dede who was not killed in the ambush on "the lonely mountain road," it is really all four women who are survivors; Patria, Mate, and Minerva lost their lives, yet their spirits and their courage live on. Through Dede they live on. Perhaps that is why she was not killed - to live to tell her sisters' stories as well as her own. Dede has always wondered why she escaped death, why she wasn't killed; interviewers always ask her that, yet she does not know why. But I believe that is the reason: she could tell their story.

It is interesting how different and diverse the four sisters' personalities are, yet I see a bit of each one in every woman. Patria, the hopeful; Minerva, the feminist; Maria Theresa, the giver; and Dede, the unsure yet strong.

What's more I learned of the dictator Trujillo and what was like to have lived under his regime. I never knew about him, never even heard of him until I read this book. This made me want to read and learn more not only about the Mirabal sisters, but about Trujillo ("El Jefe"). I love to read a book of fiction and learn about historical events - about people who actually existed and made a difference despite everything going against them. I learned of a period of history in a country that I knew nothing about (The Dominican Republic [I wonder why it's called that?] as well as a dictator I never heard of. For that, I thank Julia Alvarez.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, and I recommend it highly for everyone - men and women, Dominican and non-Dominican, young and old. It is an inspiring read.