Saving the World

Julia Alvarez

Oct 2011 · Recorded Books · Narrated by Blanca Camacho

About this audiobook

A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award with In the Time of Butterflies, author Julia Alvarez is a beloved voice in modern fiction and poetry. In Saving the World, she weaves the stories of two courageous women-separated by two centuries-into a breathtaking novel of love and idealism in an increasingly troubled world. A best-selling, Latin-American author living in Vermont, Alma stays behind when her husband travels to the Dominican Republic to help fight AIDS. She needs the time to work on her latest book, but she has terrible writer's block. Soon, her focus is diverted to an entirely new story, that of the early 19th-century anti-smallpox expedition of Dr. Francisco Balmis. Accompanying Dr. Balmis was DoNa Isabel, who cared for the orphan boys serving as living carriers of the smallpox vaccine. It is the narrative of the courageous DoNa Isabel that provides hope and inspiration when Alma's husband is taken captive. Mesmerizing and poetic, Saving the World is a visionary tale that raises profound questions about the world we live in-and whether or not it is beyond redemption.

About the author

Julia Alvarez was born in New York City on March 27, 1950 and was raised in the Dominican Republic. Before becoming a full-time writer, she traveled across the country with poetry-in-the-schools programs and then taught at the high school level and the college level. In 1991, she earned tenure at Middlebury College and published her first book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, which won the PEN Oakland/Jefferson Miles Award for excellence in 1991. Her other works include In the Time of the Butterflies, The Other Side of El Otro Lado, and Once upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA.