For May, Cass has picked Solito by Javier Zamora.
She said, "It
is a book about a young boy who crosses into the US via a 'coyote' from
El Salvador, a 3,000 mile trip, to be reunited with his parents who had
crossed ahead of him. It's an awesome memoir!"
New York Times Bestseller • Read With Jenna Book Club Pick as seen on Today • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiography • Winner of the American Library Association Alex Award
A
young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador
to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping memoir” (NPR)
of bravery, hope, and finding family.
Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction • One of the New York Public Library’s Ten Best Books of the Year
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence and the PEN/Open Book Award
“I read Solito with my heart in my throat and did not burst into tears until the last sentence. What a person, what a writer, what a book.”—Emma Straub
“A riveting tale of perseverance and the lengths humans will go to help each other in times of struggle.”—Dave Eggers
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Vulture, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews
Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago—“one day, you’ll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.”
Javier Zamora’s adventure
is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador,
through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave
behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who
left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling
alone amid a group of strangers and a “coyote” hired to lead them to
safety, Javier expects his trip to last two short weeks.
At nine
years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms,
snuggling in bed between them, and living under the same roof again. He
cannot foresee the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed
guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those
two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside fellow
migrants who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.
A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito
provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous
and near-impossible journey, but also of the miraculous kindness and
love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.
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