A Conversation with Javier Zamora

In his debut memoir, the New York Times Bestseller, Solito, Salvadoran poet Javier Zamora retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert before reuniting with his parents in California.

Accompanied only by strangers and a hired “coyote,” Zamora left his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with his mother and father in the United States. The three-thousand-mile journey, only expected to last two weeks until he was abandoned in Oaxaca, stretched into two life-altering months spent among strangers turned guardians as he traveled from El Salvador to Guatemala and then Mexico before arriving in the United States. Narrated by his nine-year-old self, Zamora’s memoir, Solito, provides an intimate account of his near-impossible journey and the unexpected moments of kindness, love, and joy scattered across perilous boat trips, desert treks, arrests, and betrayals.

“The magic of this book lies not only in the beguiling voice of young Javier, or the harrowing journey and immense bravery of the migrants, or in the built-in hero’s journey of this narrative. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that this book hasn’t always been with us. How can something so essential and fundamental to the American story not already be part of our canon?” —San Francisco Chronicle.

Conversation moderated by Dr. Avinandan “Avi” Mukherjee, Dr. Montserrat Miller, and Tim Irr.