Join us for a double feature with two genre-defying writers! Cristina Rivera Garza is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Liliana’s Invincible Summer and, most recently, Death Takes Me and Autobiography of Cotton. Javier Zamora is the author of the groundbreaking and bestselling memoir Solito, chronicling his journey from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine. Together, they appear in conversation to discuss their latest works.
Q&A with Maria de Lourdes Victoria.
Cristina Rivera Garza is the award-winning author of The Taiga Syndrome, The Iliac Crest, among many other books. Originally in Spanish, her works have been translated into multiple languages. Her memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer, won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award.
The recipient of a MacArthur Award (2020), Roger Caillois Award for Latin American Literature (2013), and the Anna Seghers Prize (2005), Rivera Garza is the only author who has won the International Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize twice—in 2001 for her novel Nadie me verá llorar (translated into English by Andrew Hurley as No One Will See Me Cry) and in 2009 for her novel La muerte me da.
She has translated, from English into Spanish, Notes on Conceptualisms by Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman; The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney; The Dead Girls Speak in Unison by Danielle Pafunda; and, from Spanish into English, “Nine Mexican Poets edited by Cristina Rivera Garza,” in New American Writing 31.
Rivera Garza is the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Chair and director of the PhD program in creative writing in Spanish at the University of Houston.
Javier Zamora was born in La Herradura, El Salvador in 1990. When he was a year old, his father fled El Salvador due to the US-funded Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992). His mother followed her husband’s footsteps in 1995 when Javier was about to turn five. Zamora was left at the care of his grandparents who helped raise him until he migrated to the US when he was nine. His first poetry collection, Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press, September 2017), explores some of these themes.
In his debut New York Times bestselling memoir, Solito (Hogarth, September 2022), Zamora retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and eventually through the Sonoran Desert. He travelled unaccompanied by boat, bus, and foot. After a coyote abandoned his group in Oaxaca, Zamora managed to make it to Arizona with the aid of other migrants.
Zamora is the winner of a 2024 Whiting Fellowship and the 2022 LA Times-Christopher Isherwood Prize. He holds fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University (Olive B. O’Connor), MacDowell, Macondo, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation (Ruth Lilly), Stanford University (Stegner), and Yaddo. He is the recipient of a 2018-2019 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University, a 2017 Lannan Literary Fellowship, the 2017 Narrative Prize, the 2016 Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award for his work in the Undocupoets Campaign.
Originally from Veracruz, Mexico, Maria de Lourdes Victoria is an award-winning author whose work has been published internationally in English and Spanish. Maria’s most recent novel, La maletita azul, was published by Planeta in June, 2025. Her third novel, La Casa de los Secretos, also published by Planeta, took second place as the Best Novel in Spanish Award at the International Latino Book Awards. Her second novel, Más allá de la Justicia (Entre Líneas, Libros y Palabras, 2010) took third place in Barcelona, Spain, at the prestigious Premio Planeta de Novela Book Awards. Her first novel, Los Hijos Del Mar ( Ediciones B, 2006), was a finalist for the Mariposa Award for Best First Novel in Spanish at the 2006 International Latino Book Awards in Washington, D.C. Marías’ short stories have appeared in prominent literary journals, such as Nimrod and Quercus Review. Her social justice articles and stories have been featured in numerous legal journals. Maria resides in Seattle and Petaluma and is currently working on her fifth novel.
Seattle Escribe is a non-profit organization that supports Spanish-speaking writers living in the United States, especially in the Northwest, to pursue their craft regardless of their stage of training. They provide resources to help them begin and develop their writing through classes, workshops, and readings conducted entirely in Spanish, strengthening their identity through this language. They also disseminate information about creative and professional development opportunities while promoting the artistic work of their members. Learn more at: https://seattleescribe.org/
