Alvarez uses fiction to recount the powerful story of the Mirabel sisters, resistance fighters from the Dominican Republic who were beaten to death because they were fighting the womanizing and dehumanizing dictator Trujillo. The first voice of the novel is the remaining sister, as she describes the characters of her three murdered sisters, and the bravery they showed as they joined the Dominican resistance movement around the 1950s and early 60s. But that's not the only story here. This is also an emotional story of girls coming of age, and finding love, finding a voice for their anger and the outrage at rape and subjugation of women, struggling with faith in the face of such evil, and looking for a better life.
The novel reveals the life of this middle class family in the Dominican Republic from about the late 1930s to the 1960s and then jumps to the 1990s as the remaining living sister gives her account and perspective.
Writer Julia Alvarez is a highly acclaimed writer whose poetry and novels explore the lives of Latina women in their own voice. She, who fled with her family to the US, had a similar life to the Mirabel sisters, and her life experiences are strongly reflected throughout her writing.
In an interview with her at Penguin Reading Guides Alvarez acknowledges how close to reality this story really is, and how she could have been one of the Butterflies, as her father was also a member of the resistance movement. She says, "We were the ones that got away, my father, my mother, my sisters and myself."
The United Nations declared Nov. 25th "International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women" as an acknowledgement of the brutality that the Inolvidables Mariposas or "unforgettable butterflies" suffered at the hands of the Trujillo dictatorship, but also in recognition of the ongoing battle women face against violence and suppression.
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