Homecoming

Julia Alvarez is one of the most famous Dominican American authors. She is mostly known for her fiction, but also for her work in other genres, which include memoir as well as poetry. Another famous Dominican American author is Junot Díaz, the author of The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao (2007) and This is How You Lose Her (2012). Both Díaz and Alvarez write about the concepts of home from the perspective of immigrant families.

When Alvarez’s Homecoming was published in 1984, Pedro Mir was the Poet Laureate of the Dominican Republic. Like Alvarez’s family, he was critical of the dictator Trujillo and forced into exile. Mir writes in Spanish, but his book Poemas de buen amor y a veces de fantasía (Poems of good love and sometimes fantasy) (1969) has been translated into English.

Alvarez paved the way for contemporary Dominican American poets, such as Elizabeth Acevedo, author of The Poet X (2018). Both women lived in New York City, but Acevedo was born after Homecoming was published. Acevedo was named the 2022 Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.