In 2016, the RC Literary Arts adopted the 1Book/1College program, hoping to create a college- and community-wide conversation around a single work in the belief that a shared experience leads to deeper and more meaningful engagement and connection. That first 1B/1C selection was Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory followed by T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain. For 2018, our common read was The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, featuring members of the Lacks family as our guests. In 2019, we hosted Meg Wolitzer, author of The Female Persuasion, and in 2020, we read Susan Orlean's The Library Book. 2021 brought Tommy Orange and his novel, There, There. Timothy Egan joined us in 2022 to discuss his book, The Big Burn and Sonia Segovia was with us in 2023 with her novel The Murmur of Bees. In 2024 we look forward to Javier Zamora being with us to discuss his memoir, Solito.
Many instructors incorporate the One Book into their courses and/or encourage students to participate in a series of free events to encourage college-wide conversation, creativity, and community.
Solito by Javier Zamora
Javier Zamora was born in El Salvador in 1990. His father fled the country when he was one, and his mother when he was about to turn five. Both parents' migrations were caused by the U.S.-funded Salvadoran Civil War. When he was nine, Javier migrated through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. His debut poetry collection, Unaccompanied, explores the impact of the war and immigration on his family. Zamora has been a Stegner Fellow at Stanford and a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard and holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation.
“The magic of this book lies not only in the beguiling voice of young Javier, or the harrowing journey and immense bravery of the migrants, or in the built-in hero’s journey of this narrative. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that this book hasn’t always been with us. How can something so essential and fundamental to the American story not already be part of our canon?”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Zamora . . . recounts in absorbing detail the dangerous, weekslong journey he took from ElSalvador to reunite with his parents in the United States when he was just 9.”
—The New York Times
Javier Zamora to visit Reedley College:
March 14, 2024 at 7:00PM
RC Cafeteria
Speaker Series 2023-2024
