In the summer of 2015 the arrival of Central American children to the U.S. who were seeking asylum surged. It was the summer that Valeria Luiselli and her family were driving down to southern border, hearing the news that there were–at that moment – about 60,000 children alone at the border, seeking asylum and waiting permission to reunite with their families, and hoping not to be deported back. When she returned to New York, where she lives, Valeria Luiselli started working as a volunteer interviewer and interpreter for children seeking to asylum in the U.S. in the court of immigration.

Lost Children Archive is an extraordinary novel of frustration, anger and sadness. It comes after Luiselli’s 2017 non-fiction book on immigration, “Tell me How It Ends” which is based on her work as a volunteer interpreter and talks about this immigration crisis. The Lost Children Archive is labelled as a novel but it is a book that takes many forms. It is a road trip across America of a family that is slowly disintegrates. At the same time it is the story of the journey of seven children from Central America aboard a train travelling to the U.S.–Mexico border and into hell. The children are the heroes of the story but they are also the victims of a brutal, inhuman system.

The Lost Children Archive is also an archive, a record of our times. Luiselli documents the political violence in the U.S. but she does not try to convince us about any particular political viewpoints, she rather explores the questions behind certain viewpoints and the ethics around documenting political crises and people’s suffering. In Lost Children Archive the shape of the story is the story.