Javier Zamora and Eileen Truax

When Javier Zamora was nine years old he was told he could begin "the journey." Days later, he left the small village in El Salvador where he lived and set out on foot, under the guidance of a coyote, on a journey of more than two months to reach the U.S. border, where his mother, whom he had not seen for years, and his father, whom he could not remember, were waiting for him. This experience left a lifelong mark that, years later, he recounted in Solito (Edicions del Periscopi and Random House, 2024), a work that has been considered one of the best books of 2023 by prestigious media such as The New York Times Book Review.

Javier Zamora, who is part of a generation of writers who have migrated to the United States and are blazing new trails in Latin American literature, talks to journalist Eileen Truax, who specializes in migration and politics, about his own experience of migration and how it is a reality that today affects thousands of children around the world.