2021 Dublin Prize for Literature
"... Luiselli doesn't just tell stories, she offers us new ways of seeing." - Entertainment Weekly
A road from New York to Mexico... A couple, a documentary filmmaker and a documentarian who create sound inventories, travel to the border with their children in tow. She seeks to record the echoes of two missing migrant girls who have crossed the border, and he seeks to record the echoes of the land where the spirits of the Apaches still roam. From deserted motels to isolated bars, this road to the heart of the continent will bring the lost voices of the past into the present and chart different routes for the travelers.
The Archive of the Lost Child takes a wide route from east to west, from one end of the Americas to the other, and creates an inventory of the soul of the age, with surprises, truths and miracles that leave the reader breathless. It is an archive that not only shows the disintegration of a family, the predicaments of a relationship and the strength of the bonds of brotherhood, but also documents and chronicles the people and humanity that hit the walls of the horrific panorama of Western civilization, the price we pay to survive, the losses and the gaps left behind by the losses.
While our mothers teach us to speak and the world teaches us to remain silent, Valeria Luiselli's novel is a book that shouts with all its might, a book that will not be forgotten for its original voice and sounds; perhaps one of the most valuable works of recent years.
"The Lost Boy Archive tells the story of America's sins." - Vulture