Bücher von Julia Alvarez

Una extraordinaria e ingeniosa novela sobre la narración de historias y lo que pasa con las que nunca contamos, de la querida autora bestseller de En el tiempo de las mariposas y De cómo las muchachas García perdieron el acento. Cementerio de las historias no contadas es la historia de Alma Cruz, una escritora que se acerca al final de su carrera y de su vida, y no quiere terminar como una colega y mentora suya, quien por mucho tiempo luchó por acabar una novela que nunca terminó y casi la enloquece. Después de la muerte de sus ancianos padres, Alma y sus hermanas heredan pequeños terrenos en la República Dominicana. Alma elige el más grande, que ninguna de las otras quieres por su supuesta ubicación indeseable y su mal estado. Se le ocurre la hermosa idea de convertirlo en un lugar para enterrar las historias que no ha compartido: manuscritos, páginas, borradores, revisiones, personajes y vidas sobre las que había trabajado, incluso por años, pero que nunca consiguió terminar. Ahora desea dejarlas descansar en paz. Alma necesita ayuda con su plan, de modo que Brava, una amiga artista que ?lo capta? (a diferencia de sus hermanas), se le une. El cementerio se convierte en un jardín de esculturas: las lápidas que Brava diseña para cada trama. Filomena, una mujer de la localidad y una de las pocas que gana acceso al cementerio contando sus propios relatos al intercomunicador que abre el portón, se convierte en la celadora, y tanto su historia como la su hermana Perla se vuelven centrales en la narración. Esta es una novela en la que las distintas historias desarrollan tentáculos que se entrelazan con los de otras, se insinúan de manera mutua y crean nuevas historias en el proceso. Las circunstancias de la propia vida de Filomena la convierten en la comprensiva escucha que las historias de Alma siguen necesitando mientras prolongan su inmutable deseo de ser contadas, encontrar un sentido y tener un final. A wonderfully inventive novel about telling stories and what happens to the stories we leave untold, from the beloved and bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.Untold is the story of a writer as she reaches the end of her career and her life. Alma Cruz doesn't want to end up like a fellow author and mentor whose cautionary tale she tells, one who fought so long and hard with a novel she couldn't complete that it threatened her sanity. After the death of Alma's elderly parents, she and her sisters each inherit small plots of land in the Dominican Republic. Alma chooses the biggest one, which none of the others want because of its supposedly undesirable location and its state of dishevelment. She has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories, the manuscripts and pages, drafts, revisions?the characters and lives she worked on, sometimes for years, but could never get quite right. To let them rest in peace. Alma needs help with her plan, so Brava, an artist friend who "gets it" (unlike Alma's perplexed sisters), jumps on board?the cemetery becomes a sculpture garden, Brava's work the custom markers for each plot. Filomena, a local and one of the few who gains entry to the cemetery by telling her own stories to an intercom that opens the gate, is soon the caretaker, and her story and the story of her sister Perla become central to the narrative. This is a novel in which stories develop tentacles that entwine other stories, insinuating themselves one to the other, and making new stories in the process.

';Julia Alvarez has suitcases full of history (public and private), trunks full of insights into what it means to be a Latina in the United States, bags full of literary wisdom.' Los Angeles Times From the internationally acclaimed author of the bestselling novels In the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garca Girls Lost Their Accents comes a rich and revealing work of nonfiction capturing the life and mind of an artist as she knits together the dual themes of coming to America and becoming a writer. The twenty-four confessional, evocative essays that make up Something to Declare are divided into two parts. ';Customs' includes Alvarez's memories of her family's life in the Dominican Republic, fleeing from Trujillo's dictatorship, and arriving in America when she was ten years old. She examines the effects of exile--surviving the shock of New York City life; yearning to fit in; training her tongue (and her mind) to speak English; and watching the Miss America pageant for clues about American-style beauty. The second half, ';Declarations,' celebrates her passion for words and the writing life. She lets us watch as she struggles with her art--searching for a subject for her next novel, confronting her characters, facing her family's anger when she invades their privacy, reflecting on the writers who influenced her, and continually honing her craft. The winner of the National Medal of Arts for her extraordinary storytelling, Julia Alvarez here offers essays that are an inspiring gift to readers and writers everywhere.';This beautiful collection of essays . . . traces a process of personal reconciliation with insight, humor, and quiet power.' San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle ';Reading Julia Alvarez's new collection of essays is like curling up with a glass of wine in one hand and the phone in the other, listening to a bighearted, wisecracking friend share the hard-earned wisdom about family, identity, and the art of writing.' People