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Overview
From the internationally acclaimed author of the bestselling novels In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents comes a rich and revealing work of nonfiction capturing the life and mind of an artist as she knits together the dual themes of coming to America and becoming a writer.
The twenty-four confessional, evocative essays that make up Something to Declare are divided into two parts. “Customs” includes Alvarez’s memories of her family’s life in the Dominican Republic, fleeing from Trujillo’s dictatorship, and arriving in America when she was ten years old. She examines the effects of exile--surviving the shock of New York City life; yearning to fit in; training her tongue (and her mind) to speak English; and watching the Miss America pageant for clues about American-style beauty. The second half, “Declarations,” celebrates her passion for words and the writing life. She lets us watch as she struggles with her art--searching for a subject for her next novel, confronting her characters, facing her family’s anger when she invades their privacy, reflecting on the writers who influenced her, and continually honing her craft.
The winner of the National Medal of Arts for her extraordinary storytelling, Julia Alvarez here offers essays that are an inspiring gift to readers and writers everywhere.
“This beautiful collection of essays . . . traces a process of personal reconciliation with insight, humor, and quiet power.” —San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle
“Reading Julia Alvarez’s new collection of essays is like curling up with a glass of wine in one hand and the phone in the other, listening to a bighearted, wisecracking friend share the hard-earned wisdom about family, identity, and the art of writing.” —People
Julia Alvarez’s new novel, Afterlife, is available now.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781565128392 |
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Publisher: | Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill |
Publication date: | 08/01/1998 |
Sold by: | Hachette Digital, Inc. |
Format: | eBook |
Pages: | 300 |
Lexile: | 1100L (what's this?) |
File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Hometown:
Middlebury, VermontDate of Birth:
March 27, 1950Place of Birth:
New York, New YorkEducation:
B.A., Middlebury College, 1971; M.F.A., Syracuse University, 1975Read an Excerpt
TEN OF MY WRITING COMMANDMENTS
I. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few.
--ZEN MASTERS
II. The obligation of the artist is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
--ANTON CHEKHOV
III. Do not be afraid!
--ANGELS APPEARING TO SHEPERDS TENDING THEIR FLOCKS BY NIGHT
IV. If you bring forth what is inside you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will destroy you.
--ST. THOMAS, GNOSTIC GOSPELS
V. Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling.
--WEI T'AI
VI. One must write a poem the way one rules an empire, the way one cooks a small fish.
--AUTHOR UNKNOWN
VII. El papel lo aguanta todo. (Paper holds everything.)
--MAMI
VIII. You must change your life.
--RAINER MARIA RILKE
IX. The function of freedom is to free someone else.
--TONI MORRISON
X. If you want to be a writer, than write. Write every day!
--SAMUEL JOHNSON
Excerpted from Something to Declare Copyright (c) 1998 Julia Alvarez. Reprinted by permission of Algonquin.
Table of Contents
Something to Declare to My Readers
Part One: Customs
Grandfather's Blessing
Our Papers
My English
My Second Opera
I Want to Be Miss Am,rica
El Doctor
La Gringuita
Picky Eater
Briefly, A Gardener
Imagining Motherhood
Genetics of Justice
Family Matters
Part Two: Declarations
First Muse
Of Maids and Other Muses
So Much Depends
Dona Aida, with Your Permission
Have Typewriter, Will Travel
A Vermont Writer from the Dominican Republic
Chasing the Butterflies
Goodbye, Ms. Chips
In the Name of the Novel
Ten of My Writing Commandments
Grounds for Fiction
Writing Matters