Reading with... Patricia Engel

photo: Elliot Erick Jimenez

Patricia Engel is the author of Infinite Country, out March 2 from Avid Reader/Simon & Schuster. Her other books are The Veins of the Ocean, It's Not Love, It's Just Paris and Vida. She is an associate professor in the creative writing program at the University of Miami.

On your nightstand now:

I'm reading an advanced copy of The President and the Frog, the upcoming novel by Carolina De Robertis, which is staggering in its brilliance. I can't wait for this one to come out. Also in my stack are The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andrés Reséndez; The Anthill by Julianne Pachico; Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz; Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life, which was a gift from a dear friend; and What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster, which I recently finished and adored.

Favorite book when you were a child:

The poem "Margarita, está linda la mar (A Margarita Debayle)" by Rubén Darío, which my mother knew by heart and recited for us all the time. Also Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien.

Your top five authors:

Toni Morrison, Laura Restrepo, James Baldwin, Edwidge Danticat and Francisco Goldman.

Book you've faked reading:

The Awakening by Kate Chopin, in college, though the professor did not call on me for discussion that day, so I didn't really have to fake having read it. I just stayed quiet. I have always meant to go back and read it.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Memory by Philippe Grimbert. It's a devastating meditation on intergenerational trauma and healing by the son of Holocaust survivors in France.

Book you've bought for the cover:

I don't really do this--I tend to read a few paragraphs before deciding on a book. But if I did it would have been We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, which has a gorgeous cover and is also an incredible story.

Book you hid from your parents:

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, which my mother discovered and confiscated, but I got another copy, so she gave up and let me keep it. The funny thing is I don't remember anything about that book now.

Book that changed your life:

The diaries of Anaïs Nin and Albert Camus were extremely important to my literary formation. I understood the power of intimate writing and how giving voice to your interiority can fuel your creative life for years to come.

Favorite line from a book:

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." --Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God. I love this line, though I think some years, like 2020 and even what we've seen so far of 2021, do both.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Four-Chambered Heart by Anaïs Nin, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, The Life Before Us by Romain Gary, Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and Delirium by Laura Restrepo.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

I tend to re-read certain books because I learn new things from each encounter. If I could bottle the feeling of my first-read of just one book, it would be Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco, which I have read and given as a gift many times over.

Book that made me you decide to be a writer:

It was a single poem that reads like a novel: "The City in Which I Love You" by Li-Young Lee, from the collection of the same name. I read it when I was 16 and was so moved that I somehow found Mr. Lee's home address (this was before e-mail) and wrote him a letter telling him so, and confessing my desire to be a writer. He sent me back a very kind and encouraging handwritten note that I still have.

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