Archive for November, 2008
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November 20, 2008Spotlight: Latina writers – Julia Alvarez
November 16, 2008Lately, I’ve been thinking about writing a novel on growing up half Cuban/Latina and half European/white, and what that means to me and how I identify. When I was younger, I never really thought about this. And I know I never really had to think about it because I was perceived as white and was never discriminated against because of my skin color/name/ethnicity. No one knew I was Cuban unless I told them. But then I would come home from school to my mom cooking picadillo on the stove and maybe one of her telenovelas playing in the background. Whenever my aunts visited (especially my Aunt Maggie), there was always loud voices and spanish words flying back and forth. I always felt connected to my heritage, but never explored my identity until recently. I still don’t know how to identify; I have a hard time saying I’m white even though I benefit from white skin privilege because I can’t deny my blood, and I have a hard time identifying as Latina BECAUSE I benefit from that white skin privilege. Being biracial or bicultural is a confusing thing.
Ever since I’ve been exploring my identity, and even before, I have been trying to read more Latina/Cuban writers. I feel connected to them; it’s like I’m reading my family history or reading prose by someone who understands me. And as a woman, their voices are relatable to my own feelings. Even if you’re not Latina, it’s still really important to read any published works you can by these women to understand their experiences – knowledge is power. And that is why I am going to share their life and works with you. Every few weeks, I hope to review another Latina writer. But for the first article on Latina writers, I chose to do my favorite author. Leave a comment if you’ve read her, or if this blog made you want to read her!
Julia Alvarez
Born: March 27th, 1950
Julia was raised in the Dominican Republic, but was born in New York City. Her parents left NYC soon after she was born and returned to the D.R. They were still under the dictatorship of Trujillo, and her father became involved in the underground. When Alvarez was 10 years old, her family fled back to the United States after the underground’s failed attempt to overthrow the dictator. She knew little English, and was often made fun of by her classmates. Throughout grammar school and high school, Julia was extremely determined and knew she wanted to be a writer. On her website, she states:
“When I’m asked what made me into a writer, I point to the watershed experience of coming to this country. Not understanding the language, I had to pay close attention to each word — great training for a writer. I also discovered the welcoming world of the imagination and books. There, I sunk my new roots. Of course, autobiographies are written afterwards. Talk to my tías in the D.R. and they’ll tell you I was making up stuff way before I ever set foot in the United States of America. (And getting punished for it, too. Lying, they called it back then.) But they’re right. As a kid, I loved stories, hearing them, telling them. Since ours was an oral culture, stories were not written down. It took coming to this country for reading and writing to become allied in my mind with storytelling.”
In 1971, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Middlebury College with a Bachelor or Arts degree. In 1975, she received a Masters in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. Afterwards, she began teaching creative writing at high schools and then colleges.
In 1991, while she was teaching at Middlebury College, she published her first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, a story about four sisters coming to the U.S. from the D.R. with their family. It was a very big success, and she ultimately left her tenured teaching position to become a full-time writer. Future works included In The Time of the Butterflies, Something to Declare, !Yo!, In the Name of Salome, and Saving the World.
In addition to writing, Alvarez and her husband started an organic sustainable coffee farm and literacy center in the Dominican Republic. Proceeds from the coffee go to the school located on the farm which teaches literacy to adults and children as well as where foreign students come to learn about sustainability. You can learn more about this in her book A Cafecito Story.
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Must-read Works
In The Time of the Butterflies
This was the first Julia Alvarez book that I read, and it is still my favorite. It may even be my favorite book of all time. I’ve given it as gifts, and everyone who reads it falls in love. This book (which was also made into a fairly decent movie) is about the Mirabal sisters – three women who were key members in trying to overthrow the vicious dictator, Rafael Trujillo, in the late 50s. This is historical fiction, and it is done very well. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking, and I still think about the book to this day.
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Before We Were Free
This is the story of 12-year-old Anita de la Torre, a young girl living in the Dominican Republic. She lives a happy life with her family (aunts, uncles, cousins, parents) in an island compound. However, when black cars with men in uniform begin showing up at her home, things start to change. The reader gets to see what it is like, as a child, to live under a dictatorship and how frightening it is. This is something you should read after reading In The Time of the Butterflies – it almost feels like a continuation, even though it is not.
Other works:
Yo!: A Novel
A Cafecito Story
Saving the World
Books #5, #6, #7
November 5, 2008
Elisabeth: The Princess Bride, Austria-Hungary, 1853 (The Royal Diaries) by Barry Denenberg
151 pages
*** out of five stars.
This faux diary is based on the real life of Elisabeth, princess of Austria. It only encompasses the time during which she met and wed her husband. However, the most interesting part of this book is the appendix. It tells you what happened to the princess and her family members after she was married (which is far more gripping than the material presented in the diary). Photos of Elisabeth and her relatives, a detailed family tree, and additional sources to further read about her are also included.
This book is geared towards children or preteens, so it’s a very quick read. I read it in the span of an hour or so, and it was fairly interesting. It wasn’t the epitome of fine literature as the prose is quite simple, but it kept my interest. I needed something light and fun after reading my last book, and this was just what I needed.
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Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
448 pages
** out of five stars
This unfinished work by Nemirovsky is set in France during the Nazi occupation. She had originally planned to include five sections in the novel, but was only able to complete the first two before she was sent to a concentration camp.
The first section is titled “Storm in June,” and is a sampling of different residents of Paris, and how they fled for their safety. Many critics have said that the reader gets a feel for exactly how those people felt, but I found that this was not true. Each character or family had a chapter, and as soon as you became somewhat involved in their story, you were sprung to another point of view. I wasn’t able to grasp fully the scale of the event and the emotions that the characters experienced; because of this, I found most of this section to move along slowly. I didn’t care about the people involved, and found myself anticipating the next section. It needed to be reworked and edited, and maybe she should have focused on two characters instead of the five or so she included. This part really bogged down my mind, and I had trouble keeping my eyes open for more than three pages.
Part two, “Dolce,” focuses on the German occupation of a small village. I connected more with this section because the character development and descriptions were able to flourish. She includes a story of a young French woman who has a love affair with a German (even though her husband is fighting in the war), and must hide it from everyone in her home and town. Nemirovsky did a great job at describing the conflicting emotions between hatred and sympathy for the occupying soldiers. There was a lot of tension between the villagers because of this conflict, and that leads to some interesting events. However, because it took me such a long time to complete “Storm in June,” I had sort of mentally checked out of this book and just wanted it to be done. In retrospect, I probably should have taken my time and enjoyed the story more.
The appendix of this novella was the most interesting. It included Nemirovsky’s notes and what she planned to do with the rest of the book, a short section on her life and what eventually happened to her, and (the best part) letters that she and her husband wrote concerning this work and her eventual deportation to Auschwitz.
Overall, I don’t know if I would recommend Suite Francaise. Maybe pick up a biography of Irene instead, and read one of her completed works. Even though I enjoyed “Dolce,” I think there are other books out there (such as Sarah’s Key) that detail the German occupation of France in a more interesting manner.
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Pocketfull of Rye by Agatha Christie
224 Pages
***1/2 out of five stars.
When a wealthy businessman is found dead in his office with rye in his shirt pocket, investigators are unsure of what to think. There was no logical reason for the rye to be there – until Miss Marple, and elderly amateur detective, comes along and presents a plausible explanation that involves a popular nursery rhyme. The deeper the investigation went, more clues were revealed and suspicious individuals came out.
I thought this was classic Agatha Christie, with the usual red herring here and there, but I found the end to be not that plausible. I was waiting to be blown away with the end, as I usually am with her work, but this time I was left unsatisfied. However, the story was a fun, quick read, but I would not recommend this as someones first Christie book. If you want to read her books, start with And Then There Were None or Evil Under the Sun.
