Infinite Country
Files
Document Type
Book
Description
Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Columbia 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 Untied 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 North 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 Engle, 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 North America? Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in the United States, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family - for whom every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.
Publication Date
3-2-2021
Publisher
Avid Reader Press
City
New York
State
NY
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Creative Writing | Fiction
Repository Citation
Engle , P. (2021). Infinite Country. New York, NY: Avid Reader Press.
