Poco después de jubilarse de la universidad donde enseñaba literatura, Antonia Vega, una escritora latina, pierde a su adorado esposo y su vida parece desmoronarse de repente. Hasta entonces parecía haber encontrado consuelo en la literatura que ama--las palabras de sus autores preferidos dan vueltas en su cabeza como plegarias--, pero la desaparición de su hermana, con su personalidad impredecible y su gran corazón, junto con la aparición de una inmigrante ilegal en el garaje de su casa, devuelven a Antonia a la dura realidad. En estas circunstancias, el mundo requiere más que palabras. Mas allá es una novela ágil y de prosa depurada. En momentos en los que reinan la confusión y el caos, la protagonista se plantea: ¿Le debemos algo a los que sufren, sean inmigrantes desconocidos o familiares cercanos? ¿Cómo podemos mantener la fe en los demás y en nosotros mismos en una realidad destrozada? Y, sobre todo, ¿cómo honramos a las personas que amamos y hemos perdido?
The author of In the Time of the Butterflies, with more than one million copies in print, is back with a tour de force.
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She
has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then
more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant,
undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she lovesher favorite
authors lines play in her head like a soundtrackbut now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in a small Vermont town, it shows how culture and
politics intersect with place and asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, includingmaybe especially
members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves?
And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?
Julia Alvarez's heartwarming novel-now in Spanish.
De cómo tía Lola vino de visita a quedarse, una novela juvenil de Julia Alvarez, cuenta la deliciosa historia de una familia dominicana, instalada en Vermont, que recibe la visita de una pariente muy especial. La irresistible, incontrolable e incluso mágica tía Lola transforma la vida de su familia. Sombreros, pañuelos, vestidos alegres, tacones, maracas, un tambor par alas fiestas, café, hierbabuena, orégano, anís, hojas de guanábana, ajíes…, su alegría invade la casa y-poco a poco-a todo el pueblo. Un relato rico, cálido y lleno de humor, que nos llevará a sonar con la posibilidad de tener una tía tan entrañable como tía Lola.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Tia Lola is going back to school in this Spanish translation of How Tia Lola Learned to Teach!
Tía Lola recibe la invitación para enseñar español en la escuela primaria de sus sobrinos, pero Miguel no está de acuerdo. Le ha costado mucho adaptarse a su nueva escuela en Vermont y, a pesar de las indudables buenas intenciones de tía Lola, él piensa que su presencia no hará sino emporar las cosas. Por otro lado, su hermana Juanita se muere de ganas de que sus compañeros conozcan a la tía, con sus coloridos vestidos. En cuestión de pocos días, la tía estara organizando una búsqueda del tesoro en español y una fiesta de carnaval en la escuela. ¿Querrá Miguel unirse a la diversión? ¿Podrá Juanita tener los pies y la mente en la tierra para guiar a sus compañeros hacia triunfo en la búsquda del tesoro?
A delightfully entertaining story of family and culture from acclaimed author Julia Alvarez.
Moving to Vermont after his parents split, Miguel has plenty to worry about! Tía Lola, his quirky, carismática, and maybe magical aunt makes his life even more unpredictable when she arrives from the Dominican Republic to help out his Mami. Like her stories for adults, Julia Alvarez's first middle-grade book sparkles with magic as it illuminates a child's experiences living in two cultures.
Tia Lola has been invited to teach Spanish at her niece and nephew's elementary school. But Miguel wants nothing to do with the arrangement. On the other hand, Miguel's little sister, Juanita, can't wait to introduce her colorfully dressed aunt to all her friends at school-that is, if she can stop getting distracted long enough. Before long, Tia Lola is organizing a Spanish treasure hunt and a Carnaval fiesta at school. Will Miguel be willing to join the fun? Will Juanita get her head out of the clouds and lead her classmates to victory in the treasure hunt?
After Tyler's father is injured in a tractor accident, his family is forced to hire migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure. Tyler isn't sure what to make of these workers. Are they undocumented? And what about the three daughters, particularly Mari, the oldest, who is proud of her Mexican heritage but also increasingly connected her American life. Her family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty they left behind in Mexico. Can Tyler and Mari find a way to be friends despite their differences?In a novel full of hope, but no easy answers, Julia Alvarez weaves a beautiful and timely story that will stay with readers long after they finish it.
After Tyler's father is injured in a tractor accident, his family is forced to hire migrant Mexican workers to help save their Vermont farm from foreclosure. Tyler isn't sure what to make of these workers. Are they undocumented? And what about the three daughters, particularly Mari, the oldest, who is proud of her Mexican heritage but also increasingly connected her American life. Her family lives in constant fear of being discovered by the authorities and sent back to the poverty they left behind in Mexico. Can Tyler and Mari find a way to be friends despite their differences?In a novel full of hope, but no easy answers, Julia Alvarez weaves a beautiful and timely story that will stay with readers long after they finish it.From the Hardcover edition.
Abandonando la tension politica de la RepublicaDominicana de los explosivos anos sesenta, las cuatro hermanasGarcia acompanadas de sus padres se autoexilian en el Bronx Neoyorquino, arribando a un ambiente totalmente desconocido y en extremo liberal para sus conservadores padres. La excelente narrativa de Julia Alvarez nos lleva de la mano por el recorrido de las dinamicas hermanas Garcia, por caminos deliciosamente divertidos y tambien plagados de conflictos generacionales, donde las barreras del lenguaje y del prejuicio social se patentizan en el trayecto de unas rebeldes hermanas que han dejado atras la vida privilegiada y conservadora en Santo Domingo y que haran todo lo posible para adaptarse a este nuevo pais plagado de novedosas oportunidades. Alvarez nos deleita, narrando con una originalidad y ligereza sorprendente el como las Garcia perdieron su acento, pero tambien ganaron una identidad que retrata al de muchas familias de inmigrantes que dia a dia luchan por tener un futuro en este gran pais.
It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everyone knows of Las Mariposas - "The Butterflies." Now, three decades later, Julia Alvarez, also a daughter of the Dominican Republic and long haunted by these sisters, immerses us in a tangled and dangerous moment in Hispanic Caribbean history to tell their story in the only way it can truly be understood - through fiction. In this brilliantly characterized novel, the voices of all four sisters - Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Dede - speak across the decades, to tell their own stories - from hair ribbons to gunrunning to prison torture - and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo's rule.
Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "simply wonderful" How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents captures the vivid lives of the Garcia sisters, four privileged and rebellious Dominican girls adapting to their new lives in America. In the 1960s, political tension forces the Garcia family away from Santo Domingo and toward the Bronx. The sisters all hit their strides in America, adapting and thriving despite cultural differences, language barriers, and prejudice. But Mami and Papi are more traditional, and they have far more difficulty adjusting to their new country. Making matters worse, the girls-frequently embarrassed by their parents-find ways to rebel against them. A touching coming-of-age tale, this enthralling book perfectly illuminates the intergenerational struggles and multicultural clashes so common to the American immigrant family.
