'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.'
-- Lea Ypi, author of
Free
'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.'
-- Dave Eggers, author of
The Circle and
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'If there's any justice, Solito will someday be considered a classic.'
-- Rumaan Alam,
New York Times bestselling author of
Leave the World Behind'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.'
--
Publishers Weekly, starred review
'I have waited for a memoir like Solito for decades.'
-- Sandra Cisneros, author of
The House on Mango Street'A stone-cold masterpiece. I read with my heart in my throat.'
-- Emma Straub, author of the
New York Times Bestseller ALL ADULTS HERE
'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.'
-- Francisco Cantu,
New York Times bestselling author of
The Line Becomes a River'A beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal'
* Kirkus Review (starred) *
'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.
* New Internationalist *
