Updated: August 26, 2010

By Christa Fletcher

Born in New York City, Julia Alvarez moved to the Dominican Republic with her family when she was three-years-old. As she grew up, she developed a talent for storytelling that would later blossom into her successful writing career as an adult. Alvarez is considered one of the most talented and widely read Latina writers.

For Alvarez, writing literature stemmed from her personal experiences living the the U.S. and the D.R. Much her writing illuminates identity and assimilation themes central to American life. These themes were derived from her move back to the U.S. when she was 10, after a failed political situation by her father.

Living in the U.S. was challenging for Alvarez, she said she "lost almost everything: a homeland, a language, family connections, a way of understanding, and a warmth." She struggled as one of the few Latina students in a Catholic school.

As a teenager she attended boarding school at Abbot College and later moved on to Connecticut College and Middlebury College after graduation. She also received her Master's Degree from Syracruse University. As an adult, Julia Alvarez worked as a creative writing teacher, editor and panelist.

She continues to write and give lectures across the country in addition to running her organization Alta Gracia, a farm-literacy center dedicated to the growth of organic coffee through environmental stability and the promotion of literacy and education, with her husband.