Premieres Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV / PBS app
Explore the life and career of Julia Alvarez, one of the most influential Latina writers of her generation. Since bursting onto the American literary scene in 1991 with her autobiographical novel, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents,” the widely acclaimed book that sold 250,000 copies, followed by “In the Time of the Butterflies” (1994), which raised global awareness about three sisters assassinated by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, Alvarez has blazed a trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream.
As one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful writers, Alvarez’s work spans multiple genres and audiences, including three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, 11 books for children and young adults, and seven literary novels.
Says filmmaker Adriana Bosch: “In our film, Dominican poet Elizabeth Acevedo introduces Julia by say that ‘Julia belongs on the Mount Rushmore of Women Latino writers, along with Isabel Allende and Sandra Cisneros. She was among the pioneers in creating a new literature that expanded the meaning of the ‘American Mainstream’ and reminds us of the famous line by Langston Hughes – "I too sing America.”
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Credits: Presented by AMERICAN MASTERS and LPB’s series VOCES. Director/Producer: Adriana Bosch.
