The Harry Ransom Center has acquired the archive of acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Julia Alvarez (b. 1950).
Alvarez’s extensive archive consists of manuscripts, correspondence, journals, and professional files. The manuscripts span her writing career and include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, and unpublished works, often in multiple drafts. Alvarez regularly sent drafts of her work to friends and colleagues, and these copies usually bear handwritten comments from the reader alongside Alvarez’s revisions.
Alvarez’s correspondence includes poems and letters from fellow writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Edwidge Danticat, Dana Gioia, and Marilyn Hacker.
Alvarez was born in New York City but raised in the Dominican Republic until she was 10. In 1960 her family was forced to flee the Dominican Republic when it was discovered that her father was involved in a plot to overthrow dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Much of Alvarez’s work is considered semi-autobiographical, drawing on her experiences as an immigrant and her bicultural identity. Alvarez’s unique experiences have shaped and infused her writing—from such award-winning novels as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies to her poetry.
Alvarez’s archive will complement the university’s internationally respected resources in Latin American studies, providing a unique and enriching resource not only for literary study, but also for the study of Latin American history and government and other prominent social and cultural issues of our time.
The Alvarez materials will be accessible once processed and cataloged.
