Unaccompanied

Fiction & Literature, Poetry
Cover of the book Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora, Copper Canyon Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Javier Zamora ISBN: 9781619321779
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press Publication: May 1, 2018
Imprint: Copper Canyon Press Language: English
Author: Javier Zamora
ISBN: 9781619321779
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Publication: May 1, 2018
Imprint: Copper Canyon Press
Language: English

"Every line resonates with a wind that crosses oceans."—Jamaal May

"Zamora's work is real life turned into myth and myth made real life." —Glappitnova

Javier Zamora was nine years old when he traveled unaccompanied 4,000 miles, across multiple borders, from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents. This dramatic and hope-filled poetry debut humanizes the highly charged and polarizing rhetoric of border-crossing; assesses borderland politics, race, and immigration on a profoundly personal level; and simultaneously remembers and imagines a birth country that's been left behind.

Through an unflinching gaze, plainspoken diction, and a combination of Spanish and English, Unaccompanied crosses rugged terrain where families are lost and reunited, coyotes lead migrants astray, and "the thin white man let us drink from a hose / while pointing his shotgun."

From "Let Me Try Again":

He knew we weren't Mexican.
He must've remembered his family
coming over the border, or the border
coming over them, because he drove us
to the border and told us next time, rest
at least five days, don't trust anyone calling
themselves coyotes, bring more tortillas, sardines,
Alhambra. He knew we would try again.
And again—like everyone does.

Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. He earned a BA at UC-Berkeley, an MFA at New York University, and is a 2016–2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

"Every line resonates with a wind that crosses oceans."—Jamaal May

"Zamora's work is real life turned into myth and myth made real life." —Glappitnova

Javier Zamora was nine years old when he traveled unaccompanied 4,000 miles, across multiple borders, from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents. This dramatic and hope-filled poetry debut humanizes the highly charged and polarizing rhetoric of border-crossing; assesses borderland politics, race, and immigration on a profoundly personal level; and simultaneously remembers and imagines a birth country that's been left behind.

Through an unflinching gaze, plainspoken diction, and a combination of Spanish and English, Unaccompanied crosses rugged terrain where families are lost and reunited, coyotes lead migrants astray, and "the thin white man let us drink from a hose / while pointing his shotgun."

From "Let Me Try Again":

He knew we weren't Mexican.
He must've remembered his family
coming over the border, or the border
coming over them, because he drove us
to the border and told us next time, rest
at least five days, don't trust anyone calling
themselves coyotes, bring more tortillas, sardines,
Alhambra. He knew we would try again.
And again—like everyone does.

Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. He earned a BA at UC-Berkeley, an MFA at New York University, and is a 2016–2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

More books from Copper Canyon Press

Cover of the book Silk Dragon by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Armored Hearts by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Happy Life by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Come on All You Ghosts by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Late Empire by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book The Infinitesimals by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Darkness Sticks to Everything by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book One Man's Dark by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Where Now: New and Selected Poems by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Shirt in Heaven by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Charms Against Lightning by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Collected Body by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book Oceanic by Javier Zamora
Cover of the book What Love Comes To by Javier Zamora
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy