CARMEN MOLINA ACOSTA
The Woman I Kept To Myself, by Julia Alvarezpublisher
This summer on Code Switch, we’re talking to some of our favorite authors about books that taught us about the different dimensions of freedom. In our last installment, we talked to author Ross Gay about the importance of celebrating joy. Next up, a conversation with the writer and poet Julia Alvarez.
Growing up, there were a lot of pieces of Julia Alvarez that felt like they didn’t fit together the way they were supposed to. Today, Alvarez is an award-winning author, most known for her first novel, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. But as a young girl, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic and an aspiring writer, she said there were versions of herself that she wasn’t always allowed to share, because they weren’t acceptable to her family and surrounding community.
For Code Switch‘s summer book series on freedom, I spoke to Alvarez about her 2004 poetry collection, The Woman I Kept to Myself, in which she explores all her different selves — the little girl who recites poetry to herself every night, the sister who fears her family’s reproach, the seasoned professor who prides herself on helping her students — and how she uncovered them with writing. In a way, it’s a very Code Switch-y collection — an acknowledgement that you’re never all of yourself all of the time, and that so many of us exist perpetually in gray areas.
We talked about the selves we don’t share with the world — or that the world doesn’t let us share with them — and how we can find freedom in giving those selves a voice. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Click here to read the full story on NPR.
American Poetry Today 