Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined, a PBS documentary

Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined comes from the PBS series American Masters. It explores many years of the Dominican American writer’s career. It isn’t a complete look at all her work, but does tell a lot of her story. Alvarez is one of the few Latina writers telling stories about the life and times of Latina women.

Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined uses conversations with Julia herself to look at some of her books and some of her work. Her family and others close to her are also interviewed. It isn’t all talking heads, however. The film takes you on location in Vermont where she lives and works, in the Dominican Republic where her life began, and shows archival footage of many events where she was featured.

The documentary spends quite a lot of time discussing her first book, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.” This was a story about her family’s immigration to America from the Dominican Republic. There’s a very long segment about “In the Time of the Butterflies,” which detailed the murder of three women who opposed the Trujillo dictatorship that ruled the DR for so many years.

There was some discussion of her poetry books and books for children, then the story skipped ahead to the book she is currently promoting, “The Cemetery of Untold Stories.”

Julia Alvarez is not just a gifted writer, she’s also beautifully articulate in conversation. It was a pleasure to hear her describe how she came to her stories and why she chose to write what she wrote.

If you are a fan of Julia Alvarez and her books, PBS currently has this streaming free (not behind their Passport paywall). I found it interesting and worth watching. Julia Alvarez is a gifted, admirable woman.