In the Time of the Butterflies

About “In the Time of the Butterflies”

It is November 25, 1960, when three sisters—Minerva, Patria, and María Teresa—were found dead at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Their Jeep was wrecked, and the official state newspaper reported their deaths as accidental. It did not mention that a fourth sister, Dedé, survived. It also did not explain that the sisters were vocal opponents of General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. They were known as Las Mariposas, or "The Butterflies." In a novel by Julia Alvarez, published in 1994, the voices of all four sisters recount their experiences, from personal moments like hair ribbons and crushes to acts of resistance such as gunrunning and enduring prison torture. The story highlights the daily suffering under Trujillo’s regime and the cost of political oppression.