Patricia Engel

Patricia Engel is an American author of Colombian descent. Born in New Jersey, she is the author of Vida (2010), a short story collection about a young Colombian-American woman; It's Not Love, It's Just Paris (2013); The Veins of the Ocean (2016); and Infinite Country (2021). Her novel The Veins of the Ocean, set between Miami and Colombia, tells the story of a woman whose brother is on death row, tracing her journey of survival and self-discovery across the Florida Keys, Cuba, and Colombia. The novel won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction in 2017. Engel is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Miami and has received fellowships from numerous arts organisations. Her fiction is noted for its lyrical prose, its evocation of Caribbean and Latin American landscapes, and its deep engagement with diaspora, family, and the legacy of violence. Infinite Country (2021) became her most widely read novel, a short, luminous story of a Colombian family separated by immigration, and was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. Engel is considered one of the most important voices in contemporary Latinx literature.