A knockout of a novel...we predict [Infinite Country] will be viewed as one of 2021's best. --O
The Oprah Magazine An exquisitely told story of family war and migration this is a novel our
increasingly divided country wants and needs to read. --R.O. Kwon Electric LiteratureI often
wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. Talia is being held at a
correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after
committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently
needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá where her father and a plane ticket to the United
States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight she might also miss her chance to finally
be reunited with her family in the north. How this family came to occupy two different
countries two different worlds comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia's
parents Mauro and Elena fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of
civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn Karina in pursuit
of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa and we see the births of
two more children Nando and Talia on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions
that lead to Mauro's deportation and the family's splintering--the costs they've all been
living with ever since. Award-winning internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel herself
a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants gives voice to all five family members
as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. And all the while the
metronome ticks. Will Talia make it to Bogotá in time? And if she does can she bring herself
to trade the solid facts of her father and life in Colombia for the distant vision of her
mother and siblings in America? Rich with Bogotá urban life steeped in Andean myth and tense
with the daily reality of 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.
