American Masters

Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined

Explore the story of Dominican-American poet and novelist Julia Alvarez, who burst onto the literary scene and blazed a trail for a generation of Latino authors.

Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined

1h 23m

Explore the story of Dominican-American poet and novelist Julia Alvarez, who burst onto the literary scene and blazed a trail for a generation of Latino authors.

Previews + Extras

  • Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined

    S38 E5 - 1m 58s

    Explore the story of Dominican-American poet and novelist Julia Alvarez, who burst onto the literary scene and blazed a trail for a generation of Latino authors.

  • How Julia Alvarez conceived the story for her novel "Afterlife": asset-mezzanine-16x9

    How Julia Alvarez conceived the story for her novel "Afterlife"

    S38 E5 - 1m 5s

    Julia Alvarez released "Afterlife" in 2020, about a woman dealing with her husband's unexpected death and meeting an undocumented teenager. The book was dedicated to her oldest sister, Maury, who died in 2015, and was Alvarez's way of "[giving] voice to that landscape of aging."

  • Julia Alvarez on the female perspective in "In the Time of the Butterflies": asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Julia Alvarez on the female perspective in "In the Time of the Butterflies"

    S38 E5 - 2m 6s

    For her second novel, "In the Time of the Butterflies," Julia Alvarez wanted to write about dictatorship from a female perspective. She chose the stories of the Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, María Teresa and Adela, the first three of which were assassinated by the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic for oppossing the government.

  • The true story behind "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents": asset-mezzanine-16x9

    The true story behind "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents"

    S38 E5 - 2m 5s

    Julia Alvarez and her sisters recount the day they had to escape from the Dominican Republic with their parents, because of her father's involvement in a plot to overthrew the dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The experience inspired a scene in her first novel, "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents."

  • How Julia Alvarez was inspired by the working class: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    How Julia Alvarez was inspired by the working class

    S38 E5 - 2m 52s

    While at the Yaddo writing retreat, Julia Alvarez found herself suffering from writers block. Inspiration struck when she befriended the maids, housekeepers and cooks and heard their stories, and eventually put together her book of poetry, "Housekeeping." "I wanted to write about the lore that comes when women are talking as they're doing their housework," said Alvarez.

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