A (her)story of one s own: fiction and autobiography in Julia Alvarez s novels

Abstract

Migrant women writers often write autobiographical novels intertwining their personal histories with fiction. These writers use their personal experiences to discuss collective matters related to different types of displacement associated with the diasporic process. Mass migration has significantly grown after the World War II, especially from former colonized countries to developed centers, increasing both contact and conflict between cultures. This dissertation intends to analyze the autobiographical novels How the García Girls Lost their Accents (1991) and ¡Yo! (1997) by Dominican-American author Julia Alvarez. The Alvarez family migrated to the U.S.A. in 1960 because of political persecution. In her novels, the writer deals with the traumas of dislocation and with the growing up process of girls caught between different cultural values. I intend to discuss how Alvarez problematizes through her autobiographical practice issues related to migration, such as gender roles, cultural hybridity, discrimination, shattered memories and fragmented identities. I also examine how these narratives contest conventions of both autobiographical and fictional genres, blurring the boundaries between the private and the political, between facts and fiction