Amazon.com Books:
From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered.

Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life.

In the Time of the Butterflies is an American Library Association Notable Book and a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee.

From Kirkus Reviews, 06/30/94:
Brimming with warmth and vitality, this new novel by the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) is a paean to the power of female courage. The butterflies are four smart and lovely Dominican sisters growing up during Trujillo's despotic regime. While her parents try desperately to cling to their imagined island of security in a swelling sea of fear and intimidation, Minerva Mirabal--the sharpest and boldest of the daughters, born with a fierce will to fight injustice--jumps headfirst into the revolutionary tide. Her sisters come upon their courage more gradually, through a passionate, protective love of family or through the sheer impossibility of closing their eyes to the horrors around them. Together, their bravery and determination meld into a seemingly insurmountable force, making Trujillo, for all his power, appear a puny adversary. Alvarez writes beautifully, whether creating the ten-year-old Maria Teresa's charming diary entries or describing Minerva's trip home after her first unsettling confrontation with Trujillo: ``As the road darkened, the beams of our headlights filled with hundreds of blinded moths. Where they hit the windshield, they left blurry marks, until it seemed like I was looking at the world through a curtain of tears.'' If the Mirabal sisters are iron-winged butterflies, their men--father and husbands--often resemble those blinded moths, feeble and fallible. Still, the women view them with kind, forgiving eyes, and though there's no question of which sex is being celebrated here, a sweet and accepting spirit toward frailty, if not human cruelty, prevails. This is not Garcia Marquez or Allende territory (no green hair or floating bodies); Alvarez's voice is her own, grounded in realism yet alive with the magic of everyday human beings who summon extraordinary courage and determination to fight for their beliefs. As mesmerizing as the Mirabal sisters themselves.

Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Synopsis: Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republica in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands.

Julia Alvarez's eagerly awaited second novel is a powerful story of courage, innocence, and martyrdom in the tangled and dangerous political culture of the Hispanic Carribean. Three sisters--"the Butterflies"--dared to oppose a dictator. Only a fourth, the youngest, survived to tell this moving tale.

Reader Comments

J Wallace (jwallace@pantheon.yale.edu), 06/25/97, rating=8 (of 10)

engaging, touching, yet melodramatic

In this novel, Julia Alvarez weaves a magical and wonderful tale through which she is able to explore and comprehend her own past. The presence of the author is continually felt through the novel which returns to the present time - 1994 - every so often. It is not difficult to understand that Ms. Alvarez needed to recreate a part of her life that is lost for herself as well as her Western readers. The world that Ms. Alvarez creates is one that is easily seen within my sights. This is a considerably amazing feat since I have never been farther south than Texas! Perhaps more building on the skeleton details given by Ms. Alvarez, I have visited the setting of this novel in my mind. But what lives, and quite eloquently, are the characters created in this novel. fter having finished the book, I feel that I can predict the sisters--what they would do, what they would say, what they might feel. This, for me, is the sign of a good novel. The characters have taken on lives of their own (ironically, since the actual people preempted the novel) and allowed me to visit their world. In The Time of Butterflies is not without criticism though. Ms. Alvarez wants the reader to truly feel the pain and suffering of her homeland. However, rather than through any details of revolution or triumph of the human spirit, her characters become the gods Ms. Alvarez tried so earnestly to avoid. Too often the reader is bombarded with melodramatic sentiments from the main characters. Though they may not have been out of character for the Mirabel sisters, this angle is not as strong as another one may have been. What is lacking is something to carry this novel further-- beyond the tears so easily evoked through deaths and torture. There is not too much to take home after having visited the couragous and fantastical world of the Mirabel sisters.

Tamara Natoli (tamara@mhv.net), 12/13/96, rating=10 (of 10)

This book is an absolute must read for anyone interested in Latin America, women's issues, and history in general. It is superbly written, poignant and heartfelt. Its impact is felt even more powerfully when one realizes that much of what the novel describes actually occurred. In the Time of the Butterflies is based on real sisters who are currently honored annually on November 25 throughout Latin America, the official Day Against Violence Against Women. That Ms. Alvarez was able to convey the severity of the dictatorship while at the same time evincing family lives full of love and passion is a testament not only to her careful research but also to her skill as a writer. I look forward to reading more of her work in the near future.

Sheelagh Fromer (ad556@virgin.usvi.net), 12/05/96, rating=10 (of 10)

Four sisters, a dictator, and death.

The Mirababal sisters capture your attention immediately with their naivety. This is a true story which has been fictionalized by the author. It takes place in the Dominican Republic under the dictator Trujillo. The sisters are not political dissedents but find themselves slowly awakening to the reality of their country. They each tell their own stories with voices which portray the horror of prisons and yet have the simple day to day experiences mingled in. Each sister is uniquely different, each wants and needs her story to be heard, and yet they speak together. This story will haunt you.

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