![]() I wrote this book mostly to see if I could try to answer these questions, but also because I wanted to bring all those aunts back from the dusty past so that they could become a part of the lives of all my readers. What does it mean to come from another country and become an American? What does it mean if you are born here but your parents or grandparents came from somewhere else? What does it mean to be a little different from the people around you? What does it mean to be a family if your parents break up and your extended family is living far away? And finally, what happens when you’ve got all these questions in your head, and your crazy, smiling, funny, well-meaning, sometimes annoying, sentimental, and magical aunt Lola from the Dominican Republic comes to visit you in Vermont? I thought about a lot of the questions I was asking when we settled down in this country. I rolled up all those remembered aunts into one aunt. Years later, I wanted to write those memories down. I left all those aunts behind on the island, but I carried my memories of them in my head. When I was ten, we moved to the United States. There was Tía Idalita, who was always smiling, and Tía Claudina, who hardly ever smiled, and Tía Laurita, who was sentimental-you had to be careful not to hurt her feelings, and Tía Fofi, who made our clothes and could work a little magic. And Tía Lulú, who told funny stories and loved to play practical jokes on people. There was Tía Rosa, who was a wonderful listener and a great cook. There was Tití, who was always reading books, and who knew the definition of any word without having to look it up in the dictionary. I don’t know about you, but I grew up with so many aunts in the Dominican Republic. ![]() ![]() It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.To readers of How Tí a Lola Came to (Visit) Stay Everyone needs a strong sense of self.We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Best Known For: Julia Alvarez is a poet and novelist who is known for novels such as 'How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents' and 'In the Time of the Butterflies'.In recent years, she has served as a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Married to Bill Eichner since 1989, Alvarez lives in Vermont. Her latest volume of poetry, The Woman I Kept to Myself, was published in 2004. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. Julia Alvarez Photo: AP Photo/Ramon EspinosaĪ versatile artist, Alvarez has created books for children, including The Secret Footprints (2000) and Tía Lola Came to Visit Stay (2001) and a novel for young adults, Before We Were Free (2002). Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. Several more works of fiction have followed, including Saving the World (2006), earning Alvarez more praise and fans worldwide. ![]() Her reading audience continued to grow with her second novel, In the Time of Butterflies, published in 1994. She explored this cultural divide in her first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, published in 1991, which garnered critical and commercial success. The theme of being caught between two cultures can be found throughout Alvarez's poetry and fiction work. Struggling at first to adapt to her new home, Alvarez graduated from Middlebury College in 1971, and went on to earn a master's degree from Syracuse University in 1975. Early Life and Educationīorn on March 27, 1950, in New York City, Julia Alvarez was raised in the Dominican Republic, but had to leave the country when she was 10 years old her family had supported an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow dictator Rafael Trujillo, and then fled to Brooklyn, New York. ![]() Several more acclaimed works of fiction have followed. She explored this in her first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991). The theme of being caught between two cultures can be found throughout Alvarez's work. Julia Alvarez is a Dominican American poet, author and essayist. ![]()
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