Saving the World

While struggling with her new novel, Alma Huebner is distracted by a small historical footnote: In 1803, a Spanish doctor crossed the Atlantic with twenty-two orphan boys'”live carriers of the small-pox vaccine'”to inoculate the population of Spain'ÂÂs American colonies. Accompanying them on the two-year voyage was a mysterious woman, Isabel Sendales y Gómez, the rectoress of the orphanage. Captivated by her courage, Alma abandons her novel-in-progress to narrate the grueling story of their journey. Meanwhile, her husband travels without her to the Dominican Republic with an organization committed to eradicating AIDS in developing countries. But when his life is threatened, it is Isabel'ÂÂs strength and resolve that arouse Alma'ÂÂs unexpectedly heroic action. This novel-within-a-novel pits ambition against altruism'”and in the process tells the radiant stories of two women swept up in campaigns against the scourges of their day.

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.