Author Event with Javier Zamora

This event is free and first-come, first-served. A limited number of premium-view reserved seats are available for those who pre-order a copy of the book by contacting Warwick’s via https://www.warwicks.com/event/zamora-2022 or calling the store at 858-454-0347. One reserved seat per book.

Zamora was born in El Salvador in 1990. His father fled the country when he was a year old, 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.

About the Book:

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.”

Zamora’s adventure is a 3,000-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, Zamora expects his trip to last two short weeks.

At nine years old, all Zamora 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 Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home.