life2

In the Time of the Butterflies By Ryan Cohen 3rd Period English In the opening chapter of Julia Alvarez's second novel, a woman receives a caller in the countryside of the Dominican Republic. The visit is an awkward obligation, a meeting between a Dominican survivor of the Trujillo regime and a younger Dominican-American woman who wants to know more about Las Mariposas the Butterflies as they are known in the history of the country. The …

…another culture, to forget events that shaped and claimed lives. Julia Alvarez has written a work of fiction that is immediate and searching. In the postscript, the author asserts, "A novel is, after all, not a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart." In the Time of the Butterflies is such a journey, demanding and courageous in the way of those sisters whose travel inspired its telling. Fortunately, the novel arrives.