Date:
Location:
Online book discussion and author talk on In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez (1994) with Julia Alvarez and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard.
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.
Join this exciting opportunity to talk with the author and fellow educators!
Register for this program.
Session Format
This online session will be conducted in an Adobe Connect virtual classroom space and can be accessed from any computer equipped with the latest version of Flash. An external headset and webcam is encouraged but not required for participation. Drop-in orientations to the virtual classroom space will be provided. The session will include a chance to discuss the novel with fellow educators and talk live with the author.
Pre-Reading
Contact: Anna Mudd
Sponsors: Harvard Committee on African Studies, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard, Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies Outreach Center