INFINITE COUNTRY

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. At the dawn of the new millennium, Colombia is a country devastated by half a century of violence. Facing grim prospects, lovers Elena and Mauro set their sights on the United States, where their growing family plunges into the precariousness of undocumented status. 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.

A recipient of the 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship, Infinite Country tells the story of a Colombian family fractured by immigration and deportation, beginning with Elena and Mauro's origins in a country devastated by half a century of guerilla, paramilitary and narco violence that has victimized millions and left more than two hundred thousand dead. The book chronicles their journey to the United States at the turn of the millennium amid rising Bush-era hostility toward foreigners, as they move across states with their three children in tow, at times living out of their car, forever looking over their shoulders to avoid police detection for being undocumented, and the shock of Mauro's eventual deportation.

Struggling to provide for three children on her own, Elena makes the agonizing decision to send their newborn, Talia, back to Bogotá to be cared for by her grandmother and father until financially stable enough to send for her baby later.

Fifteen years pass. In the north, Mauro's other children, Karina and Nando, barely remember him and are trying to navigate being undocumented and “American” with daily doses of racism from their community, more overt since the climate shift of the 2016 presidential election, even in blue state New Jersey. The question is, which country is now safer for this “mixed-status” family as they seek reunification: the land that wishes to lock them out, constantly reminding them they are outsiders? Or the country where their indigenous blood is undeniably connected to the equatorial earth?


Born to Colombian parents, Patricia Engel is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning author. Her writing has won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the International Latino Book Award, the Florida Book Award, the Independent Publisher Book Award, and the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana (Colombia's national book award). She was also a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway and Young Lions Fiction Awards and the New York Times Notable Book. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her short stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere.