The Cemetery of Untold Stories
Published on 4. June 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
280 pages
978-1-913867-82-9 (ISBN)
Description
Literary icon Julia Alvarez, the international bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies , returns with an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling that will be an instant classic.Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories , doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories - literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma's characters unspool their secrets. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.Readers of Isabel Allende's Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez's extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity, and will be reminded that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.
Reviews / Votes
"Only an alchemist as wise and sure as Alvarez could swirl the elements of folklore and the flavor of magical realism around her modern prose and make it all sing." -New York Times"Magical and multifaceted, this meditation on creativity, culture and aging is a triumph." -BookPage
"[Alvarez's] gifts for glowing prose and powerful narrative are still strong." -Kirkus, starred review
"Julia Alvarez delivers yet another glorious novel, this time about a very unique kind of love-the love of storytelling. Scheherazade-like, Alvarez keeps us hooked with surprising plot twists and revelations, and characters so captivating that we want to get lost in the corridors of their tales. Simply stated, this book is magical." -Rigoberto Gonzalez , author of TO THE BOY WHO WAS NIGHT: POEMS SELECTED AND NEW
"What a love letter not only to storytelling, but also to the tender, urgent, funny, heartbreaking reasons we tell stories in the first place. This cemetery is a fertile field of rebirth, reawakening, and joy. Every page overflows with delight and wisdom." -Stacey D'Erasmo , author of THE COMPLICITIES
"The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks us to consider if our tales will last forever or if they might one day be forever lost. Yet there is nothing to fear or lament in this reality-not when we are soothed by the balm of Alvarez's tender wit and her large-hearted candor. What a blessing to have one of our finest writers assure us that indeed 'we are in this story together'." -Manuel Munoz , author of WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK
"Julia Alvarez's thought-provoking and powerful The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a balancing act of the everyday and the magical, a blend of history and cuento. Through imperfect characters longing for love and fighting against el olvido, we are reminded that each of us is capable of terrible cruelty or incredible compassion, and that stories have the power to bring us together." -Jaquira Diaz , author of ORDINARY GIRLS
"Brims with the intoxicating power of storytelling." -Publishers Weekly
"A rich addition to the magical realist canon." -The Skinny
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Not illustrated
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
322 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-913867-82-9 (9781913867829)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Born in New York City in 1950, Julia Alvarez's parents took her back to their native country, the Dominican Republic, shortly after her birth. Ten years later, the family was forced to flee to the US because of her father's involvement in a plot to overthrow the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alvarez has written many bestselling novels including: How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, !Yo!, In the Name of Salome, and Afterlife. She has also written collections of poems, non-fiction, and numerous books for young readers. The Cemetery of Untold Stories is her most recent novel. Her awards and recognitions include the Pura Belpre and Americas Awards for her books for young readers, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. In 2013, she received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.