University of Texas Acquires the Archives of Julia Alvarez

The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas has announced that it has acquired the archives of novelist and essayist Julia Alvarez. The archives include manuscripts, journals, and correspondence. The manuscripts include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, and unpublished works.

Alvarez was born in New York City but spent most of her childhood in the Dominican Republic. She returned to the U.S. at the age of 10. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont and holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Syracuse University.

Alvarez has taught at the University of Vermont, the University of Illinois, and Middlebury College, where she is now writer-in-residence. She is the author of the novels How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (Algonquin Books, 1991) and In the Time of the Butterflies (Turtleback, 1995).

“Alvarez’s archive will provide students and scholars access to her experience-driven explorations of race, family, culture and society,” said Ransom Center Director Thomas F. Staley. “As one of the key figures in the rise of Caribbean and Latino writing over the past three decades, she writes poignantly and authentically about topics that are central to current cultural debates, from immigration to bicultural identity.”