I’d like to thank Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for gifting me an eArc.
All opinions are, of course, my own.
Title
Infinite Country
Book Details
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Date: March 2, 2021
Length: 208 pages
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
ISBN: 9781982159467
Book Description
For readers of Valeria Luiselli and Edwidge Danticat, an urgent and lyrical novel about a Colombian family fractured by deportation, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured—and are enduring right now.
At the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence. Elena and Mauro are teenagers when they meet, their blooming love an antidote to the mounting brutality of life in Bogotá. Once their first daughter is born, and facing grim economic prospects, they set their sights on the United States.
They travel to Houston and send wages back to Elena’s mother, all the while weighing whether to risk overstaying their tourist visas or to return to Bogotá. As their family expands, and they move again and again, their decision to ignore their exit dates plunges the young family into the precariousness of undocumented status, the threat of discovery menacing a life already strained. When Mauro is deported, Elena, now tasked with caring for their three small children, makes a difficult choice that will ease her burdens but splinter the family even further.
Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself the daughter of Colombian immigrants and a dual citizen, gives voice to Mauro and Elena, as well as their children, Karina, Nando, and Talia—each one navigating a divided existence, weighing their allegiance to the past, the future, to one another, and to themselves. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality for the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family—for whom every triumph is stitched with regret and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.
Author
Patricia Engel is the author of Infinite Country, forthcoming in March 2021; The Veins of the Ocean, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris, winner of the International Latino Book Award; and Vida, a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway and Young Lions Fiction Awards, New York Times Notable Book, and winner of Colombia’s national book award, the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her stories appear in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. Born to Colombian parents, Patricia teaches creative writing at the University of Miami.
Follow Patricia on her website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads.
My Thoughts & Takeaways
Infinite Country by Patricia Engel is a beautifully tragic story that centers around a Colombian family and the lifelong effects of immigration to the United States.
The story shifts between past and present and gives a deep look into what it means for a family to immigrate to a new country for a better life. Is life really better?
As many families unfortunately know, this family knows the reality of undocumented life in America and the heartbreak of a family separated by borders.
Engel takes the reader through every emotion with her elegantly written prose and a family’s emotional journey. All within 200 pages, proving that great things come in small packages.
