SOURCE: "The Time of the Tyrants," in Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women, Vol. 10, No. 2, Spring, 1995, pp. 6-7.

Hampton is a professor of Spanish. In the following review, she applauds In the Time of the Butterflies.

Julia Alvarez came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 1960 with her family to escape the tyranny of the Trujillo regime. Shortly after their escape, the Mirabal sisters, who were part of Alvarez's father's resistance group, were murdered by the regime, becoming martyrs. Intrigued by the courage of these sisters, Alvarez, the highly acclaimed author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, decided to write a fictional version of their story. In the Time of the Butterflies is the result.

The novel relates the lives of the three Mirabal sisters—Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa—in their own words and as recalled by Dedé, their...