The Mondavi Center’s Jackson Hall was buzzing Tuesday (March 10) in anticipation of Javier Zamora’s discussion on his critically acclaimed book Solito: A Memoir, this year’s selection for the Campus Community Book Project. 

Solito details how a 9-year-old Zamora, the valedictorian of his grammar school class, is thrust into a solo 3,000-mile journey from El Salvador through Guatemala and Mexico before ultimately reuniting with his parents in the United States. Originally planned for two weeks, Zamora’s journey lasts over two months, filled with harrowing changes, as a young Zamora survives with the support of strangers-turned-adopted family members. 

Published in 2022, Solito was longlisted for the PEN America 2023 Literary Awards, a winner of a 2023 American Book Award and a New York Times bestseller.

Journey to healing

In an hour-long conversation with KVIE’s Donna Apidone, their discussion recounted the events detailed in Solito and Zamora’s future in the wake of the book’s success. 

A key theme of the conversation was how, for Zamora, “therapy literally saved my life” and allowed him to not let “ten weeks of my life to dictate the rest of my life.” 

“A lot of my writing the book was fighting the little voice in my head that kept on saying, You're making that up,” Zamora recalled. “A lot of my therapy work was my therapist saying, Trust it. Trust your gut.”

Zamora continued by noting writing Solito was an act of self-love and care. 

“I was teaching myself to not be ashamed of that nine-year old, to not listen to the politicians and the news,” Zamora explained, “and to really appreciate what that nine-year old did for me and give him the love that he never received. That is the hardest part about healing, and I am so glad that I did.”

24th Book Project selection

The Campus Community Book Project was created in 2002 by the Office of Campus and Community Relations, now part of Inclusive Excellence, to promote dialogue and build community by encouraging diverse members of the campus and surrounding communities to read the same book and attend related events. 

Zamora’s memoir was chosen for the book project’s 2025-26 theme, belonging. Before and after Zamora’s talk, artists from Taller Arte del Nuevo Amanecer (TANA) distributed free prints screen-printed onsite in the lobby that reflected this year’s theme. Past topics have included mental health, gun violence, disability issues, immigration, food insecurity and more. Campus Community Book Project organizers are looking ahead to the 2026-27 theme of civil liberties. 

Q&A hits home

Before signing attendees' books in the Mondavi Center lobby, Zamora responded to audience questions ranging from Zamora’s relationship to poetry, the possibility of him returning to El Salvador and his mental health practices during a thirty-minute Q&A. Also a published poet, Zamora recalled feeling empowered as a UC Berkeley student by the class Poetry for the People, created by influential poet, June Jordan. 

He emphasized not comparing whether El Salvador or the United States was better than the other but instead emphasized the need to study both countries indigenous histories, citing his own research of Cuzcatlan, the pre-Columbian federation of states encompassing what is now El Salvador, and the Nahuatl language that preceded Spanish colonization. 

Zamora also described his forthcoming novel and a new memoir detailing the years after Solito, from fourth to ninth grade, now in San Rafael, California. He also noted publicly for the first time how he is in the process of reuniting with members from the journey detailed in Solito, whose relatives discovered the book and connected with Zamora through social media.