Julia Alvarez

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Julia Alvarez

Makayla Siharath, Senior Editor

Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American women born on March 27,1950 in New York, New York. Although she was born in New York she spent the first ten years of her life in the Dominican Republic. Laverne’s and her family were forced to flee their country when the government found out her father was secretly involved in the government. In spite of the fact that she received prejudice because of her physical features and her dialect when she arrived to America her move to the United States ignited her interest in writing. She immersed in the study of literature and writing so she enrolled in Connecticut College. Later she transferred to Middlebury College  in 1969 where she earned her degree in arts. After college She took many tracing jobs to make a living.

Alvarez got her first break in 1991 when she published her first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Most of her work were a reflection of her life in the Dominican Republic or in America. Julia Alvarez won a number of awards for her literature including the Hispanic Heritage award for literature, Pura Belpre for her young reader books, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for outstanding American Literature. Alvarez is one of the most successful Latina writers of her time. She has published five novels, four collections of poetry, four children’s books, and two works of young adult fiction.