"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
Literature I 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.
