Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Alvarez, Julia - Ruth Behar (review date May 1995)

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Ruth Behar (review date May 1995)

SOURCE: "Revolutions of the Heart," in The Women's Review of Books, Vol. XII, No. 8, May, 1995, pp. 6-7.

[In the following review, Behar contextualizes In the Time of the Butterflies as a historical novel about Latina women and revolution.]

So often I have wondered: Where are the women among those gigantic looming shadows of the male liberators, tyrants, generals, colonels and revolutionaries who have ruled the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean for the past century? Did women not fight alongside Simón Bolivar and José Martí? Have women not shared beds with revolutionaries like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, or dictators like Batista and Duvalier? Were there no women in the Sierra Maestra with Fidel Castro? The history textbooks tell the story of Spanish America's bloody national struggles for independence, decolonization and freedom as if women were never there, as if women had no...

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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