Julia Álvarez
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Julia Álvarez (born March 27, 1950) is a poet, novelist, and essayist. Born in New York, her parents returned with her to the Dominican Republic when she was three months of age and was raised there until she was ten.
In 1960, the family fled back to the United States, after her father participated in the underground against the military dictator, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. Three months later the leaders of the underground, the Mirabal sisters, were murdered. She based her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, on those murders. It was subsequently made into a film produced by Salma Hayek. She is currently writer-in-residence at Middlebury College and the owner of a quaint coffee farm in La Altagracia, Dominican Republic.
Contents |
[edit] Education
Álvarez graduated from Abbot Academy in 1967 and summa cum laude from Middlebury College in 1971, after transferring from Connecticut College, which she attended from 1967 to 1969. She received her Masters in Creative Writing from Syracuse University in 1975.
[edit] Teaching career
Alvarez was writer-in-residence for the Kentucky Arts Commission from 1975 to 1977. In that capacity she visited elementary schools, high schools, colleges and communities throughout the state conducting writing workshops and giving readings.
In 1978, she served in the same capacity with senior citizens in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1978 under the aegis of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Arts Council of Fayetteville. This project produced an anthology, Old Age Ain't For Sissies. She also conducted workshops in English and Spanish at Mary Williams Elementary School in Wilmington, Delaware sponsored by the Delaware Arts Council and the Wilmington School District. This project produced an anthology, Yo Soy/ I Am.
Alvarez taught English and creative writing at California State University, Fresno, College of the Sequoias, Phillips Andover Academy, University of Vermont, George Washington University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before coming to Middlebury College as an assistant professor in 1985. She was promoted to full professor in 1988 and resigned her tenured position to write full time in 1998. The college created the position of writer-in-residence for her, where she continues to teach creative writing on a part-time basis, advise Latino students, and serve as an outside reader for creative writing theses by English majors.
[edit] Grants and honors
Álvarez has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents was the winner of the 1991 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Book Award for works which present a multicultural viewpoint.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Housekeeping Book (1984) (poetry)
- How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1994) (fiction)
- In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) (fiction)
- The Other Side (El Otro Lado) (1995) (poetry)
- Homecoming (1996) (poetry)
- ¡Yo! (1997) (fiction)
- Something to Declare (1998) (collected essays)
- Seven Trees (1998) (poetry)
- In the Name of Salome (2000) (fiction)
- The Secret Footprints (2001) (fiction)
- How Tia Lola Came to Stay (2001) (fiction)
- A Cafecito Story (2001) (fiction)
- Before We Were Free (2002) (fiction)
- The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004) (poetry)
- Finding Miracles (2004) (fiction)
- Saving the World (2006) (fiction)
