A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020
A Most-Anticipated Book of the Year: O, The Oprah Magazine * The New York Times * The Washington Post *Vogue * Bustle * BuzzFeed * Ms. magazine * The Millions * Huffington Post * PopSugar * The Lily * Goodreads * Library Journal * LitHub * Electric Literature
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
"A stunning work of art that reminds readers Alvarez is, and always has been, in a class of her own." -Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Poet X
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves-lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack-but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including-maybe especially-members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost? Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer in residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library's program "The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez." In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling.
A Best Book of 2020: Kirkus Reviews * BookPage * Washington Independent Review of Books * Chicago Public Library
A Kirkus Reviews Best 2020 Fiction To Get Your Book Club Talking
A Latinidad Best Latinx Book of 2020
An AudioFile Magazine Best Audiobook of 2020
"A gorgeously intimate portrait of an immigrant writer and recent widow carving out hope in the face of personal and political grief."
-O, The Oprah Magazine
"[Alvarez] reaps the fruits of her earlier literary efforts . . . Afterlife is anchored not just in easy humor and sharp observation, but in her fine-tuned sense for the intimacies of immigrant sisterhood."
-The New York Times Book Review
"Resonant . . . The novel, set in 2019, poses questions about American immigration and mental-health policies, and it is a moving exploration of the ways we inadvertently fail the people we love."
-The New Yorker
"A sweeping tour de force . . . One of the most significant Latina writers of her time."
-Entertainment Weekly
"A beautifully written novel with a timely theme."
-People
"Alvarez probes the contours of private moral decisions that echo our national conversation, which excludes migrant communities from claiming
