© 2025 Michigan State University Board of Trustees
Public Media from Michigan State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

How Julia Alvarez conceived the story for her novel "Afterlife"

Season 38 Episode 5 | 1m 05s

Julia Alvarez released "Afterlife" in 2020, about a woman dealing with her husband's unexpected death and meeting an undocumented teenager. The book was dedicated to her oldest sister, Maury, who died in 2015, and was Alvarez's way of "[giving] voice to that landscape of aging."

Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Judith and Burton Resnick, Blanche and Hayward Cirker Charitable Lead Annuity Trust, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Seton J. Melvin, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, Anita and Jay Kaufman, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The Charina Endowment Fund, The Marc Haas Foundation and public television viewers.
Extras
Learn about Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winning author of Night.
Elie Wiesel reunited with his sister in France.
Before meeting his wife Marion, Elie Wiesel "shunned love" and didn't see himself having children.
Elie Wiesel vowed to always speak up whenever people were enduring suffering and humiliation.
In "Night," Elie Wiesel recounts a memory of witnessing three victims being hung.
An Iranian-American artist’s work uses abstracted Persian calligraphy to signify migration.
Comedian Phoebe Robinson takes on hustle-culture in biting comedy special.
Learn about Marlee Matlin, Oscar-winning actress and champion of the Deaf community.
Marlee Matlin visits the house she grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois.
Marlee Matlin refused to allow a hearing actor to play her Deaf husband in the 2021 film “CODA.”