In the Time of the Butterflies

Set in the Dominican Republic during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship of the 1960s, this extraordinary novel tells the story the Mirabal sisters—four women who opposed Trujillo, and became immortalized as Las Mariposas, “The Butterflies”.

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.

• "Wonderful . . . Skillfully weaves fact and fiction, building to a gut-wrenching climax." I>Newsweek
  
  "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." B>People
  
  "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." I>Los Angeles Times
  
  "Extraordinary." B>Harper's Bazaar
  
  "Haunting." B>New York Newsday
  
  "A poignant tale of courage and hope . . . As much an inspiration as it is a tragedy." B>Ms.
  
  "Imagination and history in sublime combination . . . Read this book for the novel it is. Read this book for the place it takes you. Read this book and take courage." 
  The Denver Post