Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Alvarez, Julia - Roberto González Echevarría (review date 18 December 1994)

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Roberto González Echevarría (review date 18 December 1994)

SOURCE: "Sisters in Death," in The New York Times Book Review, December 18, 1994, p. 28.

[Echevarría teaches Hispanic and comparative literature. In the following mixed review, he comments on character, plot, and theme in In the Time of the Butterflies.]

Hispanic writers in the United States have published several novels of unquestionable merit, the most recent success being Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban. Most deal with the pains and pleasures of growing up in a culture and a language outside the mainstream. If becoming an adult is a trying process under ordinary circumstances, doing so within varying and often conflicting expectations can be even more bewildering and alienating. It makes growing up, which is by its very nature self-absorbing, doubly so. A person can emerge not a harmonious blend, but simultaneously two (or more) selves in conflict. This...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Fred Muratori (review date Winter 1986)
   2. Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés (review date July 1991)
   3. Donna Rifkind (review date 6 October 1991)
   4. Jason Zappe (review date Winter 1991)
   5. Julia Alvarez with Catherine Wiley (interview date March 1992)
   6. Ilan Stavans (review date 10 April 1992)
   7. Bruce-Novoa (review date Summer 1992)
   8. Elizabeth Starcevic (review date August-September 1992)
   9. Julia Alvarez (essay date February 1993)
   10. Ilan Stavans (review date 7 November 1994)
   11. Dwight Garner (review date Winter 1994)
   12. Roberto González Echevarría (review date 18 December 1994)
   13. Janet Jones Hampton (review date Spring 1995)
   14. Rochelle Ratner (review date 15 April 1995)
   15. Publishers Weekly (review date 24 April 1995)
   16. Ruth Behar (review date May 1995)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Julia Alvarez