The southern border has long been popular terrain for novelists and beat reporters looking to make a name. But here, with Solito, Zamora makes the subject feel fresh with a shift of perspective: This account is told from the point of view of Chepito, Zamora’s 9-year-old self. Zamora writes in such a way that you never forget that this harrowing journey is being experienced by a child ... In telling this story from a child’s perspective, describing his surroundings with plainness, presenting his survival without bluster, he reveals the true horrors of migration. Of course, there are limitations to experiencing this journey from a child’s point of view. One is that children don’t know why things are happening. This drawback is most obvious when Zamora describes adults whose motivations and behaviors are not immediately clear ... Solito is an important, beautiful work. Zamora treks through his own memories and nightmares, revisiting a childhood that was lost. His account reads like a reporter’s notebook; everything is described meticulously so that it can be remembered. Zamora writes like someone who cannot afford to forget ... Solito proves that giving a poet an opportunity to turn his eye to nonfiction is a gamble that clearly pays off.
... an important book that refocuses the immigration debate by writing about — and from the perspective of — the most important aspect of it: the people who leave home behind and risk everything to look for a better life in the United States ... As touching as it is sad, and as full of hope and kindness as it is harrowing, Solito is the kind of narrative that manages to bring a huge debate down to a very personal space, bridging the gap between the unique and the universal in ways that make both look like one and the same ... this chronicle is packed with the elements readers have come to expect from migration narratives. But Zamora's voice, sense of humor, and heart make this a standout story about survival and the pursuit of the American Dream ... special for many reasons, but the main one is Zamora's voice and the energy of his vivid retelling of his journey ... While the events could have easily lead Zamora to write about the pains and dangers of undocumented migration or the way awful immigration policies have created a dangerous system, a lot of the focus is placed on the humanity and people he encountered on his journey ... Zamora treads the interstitial space between languages with grace, humor, and style ... Keeping some words, curse words, and diminutives in Spanish as well as using the language without otherizing it via the use of italics, Zamora manages to bring some of the flavor and rhythm of his native tongue to the page while simultaneously allowing context to deliver all the information monolingual readers need to understand the story ... a gripping memoir that doesn't shy away from the bad while shining a light on the good. It is also a moving narrative that belongs solely to Zamora but that also offers yet another look at what millions of others go through in pursuit of a better life. And that makes it required reading at a time when immigration is seen as a political talking point instead of as something that affects many lives in very profound ways.
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...The magic comes from the deep humanity with which Zamora tells the story...It is not romantic; no one is an angel or a superhero...No one is pure evil...These are flawed and complicated people caught in a flawed and complicated system that compels them to leave their countries and then punishes them for doing so...And while 'Solito' has nothing overtly political to say about this deeply politicized subject, it feels like the beating heart at the very center of all the noise.
In heartbreaking detail, Javier Zamora’s Solito: A Memoir recounts the author’s unaccompanied journey to a new country ... Zamora puts us in the mind of his 9-year-old self with painstaking care ... Zamora’s background as a poet...comes through in his use of short, staccato sentences during the tense, terrifying moments that Javiercito recounts. Every step of his treacherous journey engages the reader’s senses ... Zamora vividly evokes his childhood self.
Zamora’s timely memoir helps provide some answers ... recounts in gripping and graphic detail his boyhood travels to Gringolandia, that mythic land of big dreams and Big Macs. But it is more than a story about immigration, it is a coming-of-age tale about a 9-year-old whose journey toward maturity — another mythic land — was compressed into one season ... Zamora writes with economy and eloquence, and his narrative connects the reader directly to the tastes and terrors, smells and stresses of life on the run from the law ... When Zamora finally greets his parents, you’ll find yourself cheering, but this compelling story has some minor flaws. It’s too long, and it contains many Spanish phrases that are never translated. Some readers who don’t know the language may not fully grasp the tone and texture of the narrative. More seriously, Zamora never explains how this book came about. He was 9 when the story occurred, so presumably he didn’t take notes, and 23 years later he has produced an exceptionally detailed account. He thanks the 'massive help' he got from his therapist and makes a vague reference to revisiting 'the places, the people, and the events that shaped me.' But he owes his readers more information. Is this really a memoir? Or is it more like a novel, inspired by real events but leavened by imagination? ... Whatever it’s labeled, however, this is a valuable book. It puts a human face, a child’s face, on all those anonymous immigrants we only see on the news as pawns in a political game. And it reminds us, yet again, how immigrants like Javier Zamora enrich our culture, on so many days, in so many ways.
... poetic ... This heart-pounding, vivid recollection of a desperate path to a better life takes readers every terrifying step of the way ... Zamora creates a sense of immediacy with vibrant descriptions.
The narrative is vivid as Zamora relates remembered (or recreated) dialogue and description ... A non-Spanish-speaking reader might be nonplussed by the plethora of Spanish in the text. I wish there was a section at the end of the book with translations for some of the frequently used words...On the other hand, the liberal use of Spanish and Spanish slang does make Solito feel more authentic. And we do feel as if we are immersed in the trip, living in the smoke-filled small rooms as the group of six waits days and even weeks for the next leg of their journey ... While Solito is a moving account of a child's perilous journey, it's also a reminder of how we can find compassion and family where we least expect it.
The harrowing journey of a 9-year-old Salvadoran boy through Guatemala and Mexico to rejoin his parents in the U.S...The author, now a poet who has been both a Stegner and Radcliffe fellow, meticulously re-creates his tense, traumatic journey, creating a page-turning narrative that reads like fiction...Sprinkling Spanish words and phrases throughout, Zamora fashions fully fleshed portraits of his fellow travelers—e.g., a protective mother and her daughter and a variety of men who assumed leadership responsibilities—as they navigated buses and boats, packing into a single room in motels, passing through checkpoints (not always successfully), and walking for days in the desert with little food or water...Along the way, the migrants, most of them desperately trying to reach their families in the U.S., also had to learn Mexican words and change their accents in order to remain inconspicuous and avoid the dreaded La Migra...Beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal.
Poet Zamora presents an immensely moving story of desperation and hardship in this account of his childhood migration from El Salvador to the U.S. to reunite with his parents—who left during the Salvadoran Civil War—nine-year-old Zamora was forced to rely on the help of coyotes to get to America in 1999...This sheds an urgent and compassionate light on the human lives caught in an ongoing humanitarian crisis.
