Solito

In his poetry collection Unaccompanied, Javier Zamora states that one reason for his poetry is to remind Americans that the words of poets are “tied to a history of people who have literally risked [their lives] and died to write those words” (Unaccompanied, back cover). For this reason, both his poetry and memoir fit into the category of migration literature, which is defined as literature by or about migrants and their experiences of migration. In the US, books by Latin American writers about these experiences are popular because the works personalize the often politically fraught topic of immigration. Migration literature crosses all literary genres and includes poetry, short fiction, novels, memoirs, and essays. Zamora joins other contemporary Latinx and Latin American writers who focus on immigration or migration experiences, such as Mexican writer Reyna Grande, author of the memoir The Distance Between Us (2012), and Colombian American writer Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of the novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree (2018).

The themes of migration literature often focus on the circumstances that make it necessary for the author or protagonist to embark on their journey and include uncertainty, dislocation, violence, and the fragmentation of identity.