Solito

A child’s odyssey to reunite with his parents on the other side of the border

‘I don’t think I’ve ever read a memoir which captivated me in so many ways... It was a beautiful book about family, those that we have and those that we make, and the little family that they made on their journey, which was almost sort of Iliad-esque. An epic journey to their loved ones, because they had no choice.’

'A monumental accomplishment.'

'Crafted with stunning intimacy . . . you’ll feel so close to the boy [Zamora] was then that you’ll think about him long after the book is done. It’s impossible not to feel both immersed in and changed by this extraordinary book.'

'An important, beautiful work.'

‘ Solito is at once blistering and tender, devastating and affirming – it is, quite simply, a revelation, a new landmark in the literature of migration, and in nonfiction writ large.’

'A beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal'

'A monumental act of reconstruction...Zamora reminds us that behind the word migrant – whether used casually or cruelly – there are human faces, and individual tragedies and triumphs.

'A gripping story, heart-breaking in some passages and heartening in others. Solito is my travel book of the year.'

'A beguiling personal memoir which is so effortlessly evocative of time and place, so light in its unexpected humour and convincing in its characterisation, it reads like a novel written by a master of imaginative and empathetic fiction.'

' Solito is both a work of personal healing and an implicit appeal for countries, including the United States, to address the hardships and danger that immigration posed to Zamora, and continues to pose for countless others.'

'The heartbreaking odyssey of nine-year-old Javier Zamora, travelling through South America alone to reach his migrant parents in California, is both a rare, eye-opening rendition of the brutal reality of border-crossing and a haunting testament to the human cost of contemporary immigration policies. I was brought to tears of sympathy and anger.'

'It’s the finest work of non-fiction I’ve read this year … Solito is a reminder, too, of how far strangers will go to help one another in times of trouble.’

‘If there’s any justice, Solito will someday be considered a classic.’

‘This is a magnificent book. Every character is rendered with boundless care and love, and the result is… a gorgeous, riveting tale of perseverance and the lengths humans will go to help one another in times of struggle. With this book, Zamora arrives at the forefront of essential American voices.’

‘I have waited for a memoir like Solito for decades.’

‘Zamora presents an immensely moving story of desperation and hardship in this account of his childhood migration from El Salvador to the US… This sheds an urgent and compassionate light on the human lives caught in an ongoing humanitarian crisis.’

'A stone-cold masterpiece. I read with my heart in my throat.'

‘This incredible book… is an outstanding contribution to migration literature. It should become a compulsory read in schools, to understand better the ordeals that millions of migrants face daily trying to cross borders. Solito is not only a masterpiece of memoir writing but one of my favourite books of non-fiction published in recent years. It is a powerful human account that transcends languages, countries and cultures. The book sings its heart out with devastating force: it’s full of life, struggle and hope.’

Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador in 1990. His father fled the country when he was one, and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents' migrations were caused by the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War. When he was nine, Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. His debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied , explores the impact of the war and immigration on his family. Zamora has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.