Preview
  • The Cemetery of Untold Stories

  • By: Julia Alvarez
  • Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
  • Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (152 ratings)

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The Cemetery of Untold Stories

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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Critic reviews

“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 history and backstories 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 relisten 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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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Not good for audiobook

Good story but difficult to follow the characters, made more difficult because of the single reader and the long chapter 4. If you loose your place it’s impossible to find it again. It would have been better also to have a glossary of the Spanish sayings. Friends who grew up with Spanish were familiar with them, I felt left out of that experience.

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22 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A unique story told in an unexpected way

A five star read for me! I loved the thought and unique storyline of this book. It was interesting, heartwarming and heartbreaking all the same. Creative storytelling at its finest!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Telling the Untold

An gorgeous novel filled to brimming with life, love, sorrow, beauty, and beasts as well. Alvarez takes in the ghosts of forgotten pasts, allowing their spectral hands to guide her writing. Herein we read of culture and language and all that comes with the writing process. Our narrator for this Audible version does such a fine job it is almost as if she is telling us her own tale. Marvelous work from beginning to end.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

We all have stories

The intertwining of the lives in the stories was fun as more was revealed. Well written. Well read, although the pace was slow.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great interwoven storytelling

Loved how all the stories were connected. This book was captivating and I loved, and hated, the characters’ stories. What a unique way to bring multiple stories together. The relationships between everyone, their dreams and struggles, everything was beautifully developed.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Story richness!

I absolutely loved this story and the performance was lovely. I was struck by the idea of saying goodbye to untold stories in such an incredible way.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful tale

“The Cemetery of Untold Stories” is an absolutely beautiful tale, with fabulous narration. A new favorite.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Wandering

The words are beautiful, and the narration… but the story zig zags quite a bit. Still, lovely ideas

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Power of stories

Alma Cruz, famous writer, returns to the Dominican Republic after she stops writing to settle her father’s estate and decides to bury some of her unfinished stories. She then hires Philomena as the cemetery caretaker. Philomena can hear the voices from the stories and likes listening to them, but she has her own stories to tell without realizing that some might interact with the others.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

slow magic

It took me a while to like this book, but once the actual cemetery was built and the stories of Alma and especially Philomena began to develop, I was hooked. By the end, I was thinking, "Don't go yet!"

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