Homecoming: Poems

New York: Grove Press, 1984. 1st Printing. Soft Cover. Near Fine. 6x4x0. Signed by author. First paperback printing. Embossed owner stamp of Dirk J. Stratton on front flyleaf, spine a bit faded. 1984 Soft Cover. 93 pp. "Alvarez's first published collection of poetry, a work of great subtlety and power in which the young poet returned to her old-world childhood in the Dominican Republic." "Julia Alvarez (born March 27, 1950) is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Alvarez rose to prominence with the novels How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Butterflies (1994), and Yo! (1997). Her publications as a poet include (truncated) Homecoming (1984) and The Woman I Kept to Myself (2004), and as an essayist the autobiographical compilation Something to Declare (1998). Many literary critics regard her to be one of the most significant Latina writers and she has achieved critical and commercial success on an international scale. Born in New York, she spent the first ten years of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, until her father's involvement in a political rebellion forced her family to flee the country. Many of Alvarez's works are influenced by her experiences as a Dominican in the United States, and focus heavily on issues of assimilation and identity. Her cultural upbringing as both a Dominican and an American is evident in the combination of personal and political tone in her writing. She is known for works that examine cultural expectations of women both in the Dominican Republic and the United States, and for rigorous investigations of cultural stereotypes. In recent years, Alvarez has expanded her subject matter with works such as In the Name of Salome (2000), a novel with Cuban rather than solely Dominican characters and fictionalized versions of historical figures. (Inventory #: 2348739)