Javier Zamora

Javier Zamora
Zamora, reading at Sacred Heart School, Washington, D.C. 2018
Born	1990 (age 33–34) San Luis La Herradura, El Salvador
Language	English, Spanish
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley (BA) New York University (MFA)
Genre	Poetry, Prose
Notable works	Unaccompanied, SOLITO, Nine Immigrant Years
Notable awards	Wallace Stegner Fellow, NEA Fellow, Lannan Foundation Fellow, Ruth Lilly Fellow, Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University
Spouse	Jo Blair Cipriano
Website
javierzamora.net

Javier Zamora (born 1990) is a Salvadoran poet and activist. Zamora is the author of Unaccompanied (2017), Solito (2022), and Nine Immigrant Years (2011). He has written works related towards his migration to the United States.

Zamora was born in San Luis La Herradura, El Salvador^[1] and illegally immigrated to the United States at the age of nine,^[2] joining his parents in California.^[3][4] His work surrounds borderland politics and race and how migration and civil war has affected him and his family. Zamora's father fled El Salvador due to the Civil war that was happening in El Salvador during the time. With Zamora's mother following shortly in 1995. After that Zamora was left in the care of his grandparents until he migrated to the United States at the age of nine.^[5]

He earned a BA at the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA at New York University and was a 2016–2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.^[6][4]

Zamora's chapbook Nueve Años Inmigrantes/Nine Immigrant Years won the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Contest, and his first poetry collection, Unaccompanied,^[7] was published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press. His poetry can be found in The American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2013, Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, The New Republic, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry.

Zamora is a new generation writer in Latin Literature, with his rich caliche style. A form of Salvadoran slang, which he incorporates into his narratives and works.^[8]

The poetry book Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora provides a moving and intimate viewpoint on the experience of migration and the difficulties unaccompanied Central American children have when crossing the border between the United States and Mexico. Zamora explores ideas of identity, belonging, and the pursuit of home using strong and vivid language. These young refugees' experiences are made very relatable and understandable by the poems' vivid imagery and poetic approach. The book transports readers through the emotional landscapes of migration while illuminating the struggles endured by people looking for a better life. The poems become more real and emotionally resonant due to Zamora's personal connection to the subject matter, which also provides a counternarrative and humanizes the experiences of unaccompanied children.^[9][10] "Unaccompanied" poses significant queries regarding immigration laws, human rights, and the effects of boundaries on people and families. Zamora's contribution to "Unaccompanied" has won several awards and praise. The collection won the Northern California Book Award 2018 and was a finalist for the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. The Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship is one of the many literary honors bestowed to Zamora.

Zamora's honors include Barnes & Noble Writer for Writer's Award (2016), Meridian Editors’ Prize, and the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Zamora has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, CantoMundo, Colgate University, The Frost Place,^[11] MacDowell Colony, the Macondo Writers Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers' Conference, the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing, and Yaddo.^[12][6] In 2017, Zamora was awarded the Narrative Prize for "Sonoran Song," "To the President-Elect," and "Thoughts on the Anniversary of My Crossing the Sonoran Desert".^[13][14] In 2023 he received a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for Solito: A Memoir. His debut work Solito: A Memoir recounting his journey from Mexico to the Sonoran Desert is a New York Times Bestseller. In 2024 Zamora is the winner of a Whiting Fellowship for Nonfiction Poetry.^[15][16]

Zamora was a founder, with poets Marcelo Hernandez Castillo and Christopher Soto (AKA Loma), of the Undocupoets campaign which eliminated citizenship requirements from major first poetry book prizes in the United States.^[1][17]

• —— (2012). Nueve Años Immigrantes/Nine Immigrant Years. Organic Weapon Arts. ISBN 9780982710616.
• —— (2017). Unaccompanied. Copper Canyon Press. ISBN 9781556595110.
• —— (2022). Solito: A Memoir. Hogarth Books. ISBN 9780593498064.^[18]

In 1999 Zamora went from El Salvador to the United States at the age of 9 as an unaccompanied minor. In 2017 Javier Zamora published Unaccompanied, a collection of poems based around his story on crossing to the United States. The title of this work is what inspired Zamora to name his book "Unaccompanied". Years later, Zamora revisits the path he took, reflecting on his status as an undocumented person in the United States.^[19]

Throughout "Unacccompanied" Zamora focuses on different aspects on his journey to the United States. Through the story Zamora refers to the border being more than just a border. Zamora also mentions how arriving to the United States changed his view on himself and how it affected his identity. Nearing the end of Unaccompanied Zamora shifted his focus to poems that tied themselves together. Zamora remembers El Salvador being separated and only having a memory of it. The poems written by Zamora tell the story of his undocumented journey and give the reader a feeling of what it was like crossing the border.^[19]

• —— (2018). "Various Poems". In Melissa Tuckey (ed.). Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820353159.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Javier Zamora.

• Poetry and Profile at Poetry Foundation website
• Profile at Poets & Writers magazine
• "Sonoran Song and Other Poems" at Narrative Magazine.
• Appearances on C-SPAN