Jenna Bush Hager has selected Javier Zamora’s Solito as the latest pick for her Today show book club.
Zamora’s memoir, published Tuesday by Hogarth, recounts his arduous 3000-mile, two-month-long journey from El Salvador to the U.S. when he was 9 years old; his parents had migrated to the States years before. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book a “beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever read a memoir which captivated me in so many ways,” Hager said. “It [is] a beautiful book about family, those that we have and those that we make, and the little family that they made on their journey, which was almost sort of Iliad-esque. An epic journey to their loved ones, because they had no choice.”
Zamora’s memoir revisits themes he addressed in Unaccompanied, a collection of poetry published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press. At the time, he told the Today show, “Poetry was as far as I wanted to dig into this story.”
Hager shared news of the memoir’s selection in an Instagram post, writing, “[Zamora] says in writing this book, he's not only telling his own story, but the story of millions of others who have no choice but to leave their homes. While Javier’s journey is harrowing and even treacherous at times, his story is also about hope and finding kindness and love in the most unexpected places.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
