Alive in Their Garden: The True Story of the Mirabal Sisters and Their Fight for Freedom - Softcover

Mirabal, Dedé

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1683405005 ISBN 13: 9781683405009

Publisher: University of Florida Press, 2025

Synopsis

The lives and legacy of the iconic Mirabal sisters, as told in an intimate memoir by the sister who survived

 

“This is the book I wish I’d had on hand as I was writing In the Time of the Butterflies.”—From the introduction by Julia Alvarez

In 1960, the three sisters Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal, code-named “Las Mariposas” (The Butterflies) by a Dominican underground resistance movement, were assassinated by order of dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alive in Their Garden is the memoir of Dedé Mirabal, their surviving sister, who for decades kept her sisters alive in Dominican memory. This is the first English translation of Dedé’s story, an intimate account of a tragedy and the international outcry that, for many, heralded the fall of the Trujillo dictatorship.

In her memoir, Dedé recollects her sisters’ lives and personalities, the optimistic beginning of the 14th of June Revolutionary Movement, and the tragic day of her sisters’ murders. She details the emotionally charged court proceedings that followed and the impact these events had not only on the Mariposas’ children and family but on the world. Along her journey, Dedé grapples with the question, “Why did they not kill you too?” And as time goes on, she comes to recognize her own important role: raising her sisters’ children alongside her own and working to preserve the memory of a generation.

This edition features the memoir’s original introduction by Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, a chronology by historian Bernardo Vega, and an afterword by Minerva’s daughter Minou Tavárez Mirabal. Adding a preface and explanatory notes that orient readers to the Trujillato in the Dominican Republic, translators and editors Ana Martínez and Heather Hennes bring a moving true story and valuable piece of history to new readers.

About this title

About the Authors

Dedé Mirabal (1925‒2014) was the surviving sister of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal and the founder of the Mirabal Sisters Foundation and the Mirabal Sisters House Museum. 

Ana (Nani) E. Martínez is a journalist, translator, and interpreter living in the Dominican Republic.

Heather Hennes, professor of Spanish at Saint Joseph’s University, is the translator of The Letters of Minerva Mirabal and Manolo Tavárez: Love and Resistance in the Time of Trujillo.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Florida Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1683405005
• ISBN 13: 9781683405009
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342