Enrique's Journey
Sonia Nazario
‘A remarkable reporter, Nazario has immersed herself completely in this world, giving it depth and texture … although Nazario's reporter’s instincts have served her well … the writing tends towards a newspaper style … but these stylistic flaws are generally cosmetic and don't detract from Nazario's main argument …[Nazario] has illuminated the modern immigrant experience; with Enrique she has given a voice and a face to these migrant children.’
(New York Times)‘This is a twenty-first-century Odyssey. Nazario’s powerful writing illuminates one of the darkest stories in our country. This is outstanding journalism. If you are going to read only one non-fiction book this year, it has to be this one, because you know these young heroes. They live next door ...’
Isabel Allende"[Enrique’s Journey] personifies one of the greatest migrations in history … Much of the book is a thriller … a 12,000-mile journey worthy of an Indiana Jones movie."
(The Orange County Register)In this astonishing, true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.
Five-year-old Enrique is like many young Hondurans: his family is too poor to feed the children and to keep him in school, so his mother leaves Honduras to work in the United States with the promise that she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again and begs for his mother to come home. Finally, after eleven years of separation and patience, he decides he will find her.
Enrique sets off alone from Honduras, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number. With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother’s side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds the only way he can, by clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains of the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte — The Train of Death.
Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope — and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.
Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes (one for feature writing and another for feature photography), Enrique’s Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his life to find the mother he loves.
"An amazing tale … for some journalists, research means sitting at a computer and surfing Google … For Sonia Nazario … it means leaving home for months at a time to sit on top of a moving freight train running the length of Mexico, risking gangsters and bandits and the occasional tree branch that might knock her off and thrust her under the wheels. It means not eating, drinking water or going to the bathroom for 16-hour stretches-all in service to the story."
(San Francisco Chronicle)"A remarkable feat of 'immersion reporting.’ … [Gives] the immigrant … flesh and bone, history and voice … The kind of story we have told ourselves throughout history, a story we still need to hear."
(Los Angeles Times Book Review)‘Nazario is a fearless reporter … her searing report from the immigration frontlines, won two Pulitzer Prizes. Expanded and update, this book length account of the risks teens are taking to escape poverty and find their mothers is an harrowing as it is heartbreaking.’ (four stars)
(People)"Astounding … I am unaware of any journalist who has voluntarily placed herself in greater peril to nail down a story than did Nazario."
Steve Weinberg, former executive director of investigative reporters and editors (The Baltimore Sun)"This portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape American conversations about immigration."
(Kirkus Reviews (starred review))"Gripping and harrowing … a story begging to be told … readers fed up with the ongoing turf wars between fact and fiction, take note: Here is fantastic stunt reporting that places this sometimes hard-to-believe story squarely in the realm of nonfiction."
(The Christian Science Monitor)"A story of heartache, brutality, and love deferred that is near mythic in its power."
(Los Angeles Magazine)"Stunning … As an adventure narrative alone, Enrique’s Journey is a worthy read … Nazario’s impressive piece of reporting ... turn[s] the current immigration controversy from a political story into a personal one."
( Entertainment Weekly)'tthe story … makes a gripping book, one that viscerally conveys the experience of illegal immigrations … The breadth and depth of Nazario's research into this phenomenon is astounding, and she has crafted her findings into a story that is at once moving and polemical.’
(Publishers Weekly (starred review))"[A] prodigious feat of reporting … vivid and detailed … [Nazario is] amazingly thorough and intrepid."
(Newsday)"A stirring and troubling book about a magnificent journey … Joseph Campbell would recognize Enrique’s Journey. It’s the stuff of myth … [but] Enrique’s Journey is true … A microcosm of the massive exodus pouring over the borders of our nations … Enrique's suffering and bravery become universal, and one cannot fail to be moved by the desperation and sheer strength of spirit that guides these lonely wanderers … Enrique’s Journey is about love. It’s about family. It’s about home … The border will continue to trouble the dreams of anyone who is paying attention … Enrique’s Journey is among the best border books yet written."
(The Washington Post Book World)"Compelling … drama, pathos, and [the] hot topic of illegal immigration."
(The San Diego Union-Tribune)"A meticulously documented account of an epic journey, one undertaken by thousands of children every year … [Nazario] covers both positive and negative effects of immigration, illuminating the problem’s complexity … In telling Enrique’s story [she] bears witness for us all."
(San Francisco Chronicle)"Compelling … Nazario doesn’t pull any punches."
(Dallas Morning News)An 'extraordinary book that demonstrates the intense power of the mother–child relationship ... This is extraordinary drama, and journalism of the best kind.'
Lucy Clark (Sunday Telegraph)'Simple and straightforward, Nazario's prose lends the material a depth and humanity that is both impressive and quietly shocking in its vividness.'
Heidi Maier (The Sun Herald)Sonia Nazario
Author photo
Sonia Nazario, a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times, has spent more than two decades reporting and writing about social issues. Her stories have tackled some of America's biggest issues: hunger, drug addiction, immigration.
She has won numerous national awards. In 2003, her story of a Honduran boy's struggle to find his mother in the United States, entitled 'Enrique's Journey', won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence. In 1998, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on children of drug-addicted parents. In 1994, she won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series on hunger.
Nazario grew up in Kansas and Argentina and has written exclusively from Latin America and about Latinos in the United States. She began her career at The Wall Street Journal, where she reported from four bureaus: New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles. In 1993, she joined the Los Angeles Times. She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master's degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
Extent: 320pp
Size: 234mm x 153mm
ISBN (10): 1921215 038
ISBN (13): 9781921215032
RRP: $32.95
Pub date: October 2006
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