Sonia Nazario
Enrique’s Journey (Revised and updated edition)
(Random House, February 2014)
One of New York Times‘s “3 Books to Read on the Toll of Migration on Children”
National Bestseller
#1 Bestseller on Amazon
Named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, and San Antonio Express-News
Awards include:
-Pulitzer Prize, featuring writing
-George Polk Award for International Reporting
-Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Problems of the Disadvantaged, Grand Prize
-California Book Award
-Christopher Book Award
With over 300,000 copies sold in English and 50,000 in Spanish, Enrique’s Journey is a modern day epic of a boy determined to reunite with his mother. Upon the original release in 2007, it was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and Miami Herald. Sonia Nazario was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the original Los Angeles Times series and the book received the George Polk Award for International Reporting, and the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. Now updated with a new Epilogue and Afterword, photos of Enrique and his family, an author interview, and more, this is the definitive edition of a contemporary classic.
Praise for Enrique’s Journey
“A stirring and troubling book about a magnificent journey…A microcosm of the massive exodus pouring over the borders of our nations…Enrique’s suffering and bravery become universal…Enrique’s Journey is among the best border books yet written.”
—The Washington Post
“Nazario has illuminated the modern immigrant experience: with Enrique, she has given a voice and a face to these migrant children.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“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 sixteen-hour stretches—all in service to the story.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“This is a twenty-first century Odyssey….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
“This portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape…conversations about immigration.”
—Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
“A prodigious feat of reporting…vivid and detailed…[Nazario is] amazingly thorough and intrepid.”
—Newsday
“[Nazario] is a fearless reporter who traveled hundreds of miles atop freight trains in order to palpably re-create the danger that faces young migrants as they flee north.”
—People (four stars)
“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
“A story of heartache, brutality, and love deferred that is near mythic in its power.”
—Los Angeles Magazine
“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
“This is a harrowing odyssey that depicts one young man’s attempts to reunite with his mother and the social and economic issues involved in illegal immigration.”
—Booklist
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Sonia Nazario is an award-winning journalist who has won some of the most prestigious journalism and book awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes. She was also a finalist for a third Pulitzer, in Public Service. Nazario, who grew up in Kansas and in Argentina, has written extensively from Latin America and about Latinos in the United States. She has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine. In 2012 Columbia Journalism Review named Nazario among “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40.”
Her recent humanitarian efforts to get lawyers for unaccompanied migrant children led to her selection as the 2015 Don and Arvonne Fraser Human Rights Award recipient by the Advocates for Human Rights. She also was named a 2015 Champion of Children by First Focus and a 2015 Golden Door award winner by HIAS Pennsylvania. In 2016, the American Immigration Council gave her the American Heritage Award. Also in 2016, the Houston Peace & Justice Center honored her with their National Peacemaker Award.
She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She has honorary doctorates from Mount St. Mary’s College and Whittier College. She began her career at the Wall Street Journal, and later joined the Los Angeles Times.
She is now at work on her second book and is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.