It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s … dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—“The Butterflies.”
In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters—Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé—speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of political oppression.
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Well-written, historically-based story of 4 sisters growing up in the Dominican Republic and their life and death under the Trujillo regime. A gripping story of love of country, love of family, and courage in the face of evil. A difficult read, at times, but well worth the effort.
This book is so beautiful and well-written that I recommended it to my English teacher, and continue to recommend it to everyone I meet who mentions books. This book was the first by Julia Alvarez that I read, and since then I have read three more. Her prose is beautiful in all of them, but “In the Time of Butterflies” captured my heart in a way …
This book was recommended to me by several people when I was searching for something about the Dominican Republic. While this is a fictional novel, the Mirabal sisters were real people, and for 3 of them, their lives did end tragically. There is a day of rememberence for them in the Domican Republic. You can read about their history HERE There …
This fictional story based off a real account is so incredibly well-written. I recommend this book 100% for anyone interested in historical fiction–especially that of Hispanic American fiction. It is a beautiful story one would easily want to revisit again and again.