In the Time of the Butterflies Author: Julia Alvarez | Language: English | ISBN:
B00APBPAZE | Format: PDF
In the Time of the Butterflies Description
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.
- File Size: 786 KB
- Print Length: 352 pages
- Publisher: Algonquin Books; Reprint edition (January 12, 2010)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00APBPAZE
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,650 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #11
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic
- #11
in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic
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").
Based on actual events, "In the Time of the Butterflies," is a tragic look at the four Mirabal sisters and their struggle to bring an end to the tyrannical regime of the Dominican Republic's most notorious dictator, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Known for his ruthlessness and his ability to make his political enemies disappear without a trace, Trujillo's regime was one of the most brutal in Latin American history.
After taking over the country with the assistance of the military, Trujillo began a campaign of making himself somewhat of a demigod, even renaming the nation's capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo ("Trujillo City"). During this time, four sisters unified the Dominican resistance in trying to bring freedom and justice to that nation. While their husbands suffered in the nation's worst prison, the Mirabal sisters face uncertain perils and repression from Trujillo's henchmen.
While the author doesn't really discuss the main reason for Trujillo's infatuation with one of the sisters, their story is one of the most memorable cases of human rights abuses on record. Trujillo, son of biracial parents, never was accepted into traditional Dominican society due to his skin color. In a country where race plays a very important role in your social standing, this was a slap to the face, and after meeting one of the Mirabal sisters before his ascent to power, and getting rejected by her, it seems like the main motives for their murders was primarily for vengeance.
Told from the point of view of the only sister to survive the accident that claimed the lives of the other three, Dede's view is somewhat blurry to an extent. Seeing that some of the novel has fictional dialogue, it is understandable why the novel moves in a slow, yet respectful approach.
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