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  • The Cemetery of Untold Stories

  • Written by: Julia Alvarez
  • Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
  • Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Written by: Julia Alvarez
Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
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Publisher's Summary

Literary icon Julia Alvarez returns with an inventive and emotional novel about storytelling itself that will be an instant classic.

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener as Alma’s characters unspool their secret tales. Among them: Bienvenida, the abandoned second wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo, consigned to oblivion by history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

The characters defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories.

Listeners of Isabel Allende’s Violeta and Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will devour Alvarez’s extraordinary new novel about beauty and authenticity that reminds us the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

©2024 Julia Alvarez (P)2024 Recorded Books
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What the critics say

“Thought-provoking and powerful, The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a balancing act of the everyday and the magical, a blend of history and cuento. Through imperfect characters longing for love and fighting against el olvido, we are reminded that stories have the power to bring us together.”—Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girl

Editorial Review

A reminder to call home
Growing up in a Dominican household, I would often hear my mother raving (very similarly to me) to my aunts about “el nuevo libro de Julia” (Julia’s new book) and would watch her devour Alvarez’s novels. I finally picked up In the Time of the Butterflies as a teen. I’ve been a fan ever since. Alvarez’s latest, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is Alma’s story, and finds her and her sisters inheriting a plot of land in the Dominican Republic. When Alma, an author, decides to turn her plot of land into a cemetery for her unfinished stories, she thinks she is finally putting them to rest – but some stories refuse to remain untold. This novel combines magical realism with captivating tales of immigration, persecution and love to tell a story full of the history of the Dominican Republic and the characters who call the beautiful land home. The story is topped off with a seamless performance from Alma Cuervo, who immerses listeners into this beautiful story that left me ready to re-listen with Mom, who may have me beat by listening to the Spanish version, narrated by Altagracia Nova. —Patty R., Audible Editor

What listeners say about The Cemetery of Untold Stories

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Creative and fresh

I was tiredof tge same old same old tgat comes up once your devise thinks it knows you. Took a path away from the usual an cound this wonderful narative unlike any thing I havevread before. I loved the unfolding of family tales over generations with a novel "suppose" that tiesthem together. will look for more by this author

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