The Mirabal sisters and their testimonio in Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies

Abstract

The Mirabal sisters opposed the regime of Rafael Trujillo, a notorious Dominican dictator who terrorized the nation for almost 30 years. Their brutal deaths on the dictator’s order served as a catalyst for change. The sisters became heroines and martyrs in the fight against Trujillo’s repressive regime, and symbols of both popular and feminist resistance. Julia Alvarez’s novel tells the Mirabal story and describes their legacy. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how In the Time of the Butterflies gives access to Dominican history, and how literature creates a voice for victims of political violence and terror.