Julia Alvarez

     Julia Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27, 1950. Soon after she was born, her family went back to the Dominican Republic where she lived in until she was ten years old. Her family was later forced to leave the Dominican Republic when her father failed to oust dictator Rafael Trujillo. They fled back to the Bronx,  New York, where her father held a successful medical profession. As for herself, Julia graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College in Vermont, and she earned a Masters Degree from Syracuse University. Julia taught at the University of Vermont at Burlington, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., the University of Illinois, and is currently teaching at Middlebury College in Vermont.

     Julia Alvarez’s first novel was “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents”. This book is often called her semi-autobiographical novel because much of the what is in it relates to her life. The novel shinned and opened an enormous gate that revealed her work to many critics and readers. Her novel introduces a family whom constantly battles to overcome the struggle of a cultural clash. “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” is a collection of fifteen short stories, in inverse chronological order, including “The Kiss.”