Transcript of conversation with Julia Alvarez

Alvarez: Thank goodness that I found the public library, because they put books in my hand and maybe out of desperation and needing company, and feeling so bereft, I had to- I was thrown back on myself and then to discover that there were these worlds I could enter where everybody was welcome. No sign posted on the cover saying “No Girls”, no this, no that. You could enter and you became these other people, and you could be a prince, you could be a pauper. You could be a slave girl, you could be a, you know, a- a person from an upper class family in- in Britain. You could be any number of things, and I thought this is where I want to be. This is the United States I was searching for came to me between the covers of books. You know, this great democracy of reading.