Patricia Engel has 4 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 8 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is Infinite Country.
Infinite Country
Summary
A Reese's Book Club Pick “A knockout of a novel…we predict [Infinite Country] will be viewed as one of 2021’s best.” (O, The Oprah Magazine) Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 from Esquire, O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle, GMA, New York Post, Ms. Magazine, The Millions, Electric Literature, LitHub, AARP, Refinery29, BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, She Reads, Alma, and more. 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.
©2021 Patricia Engel. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.
Vida
Summary
Fresh, accomplished, and fearless, Vida marks the debut of Patricia Engel, a young author of immense talent and promise. Vida follows a single narrator, Sabina, as she navigates her shifting identity as a daughter of the Colombian diaspora and struggles to find her place within and beyond the net of her strong, protective, but embattled family. In Lucho, Sabina's family already foreigners in a town of blancos is shunned by the community when a relative commits an unspeakable act of violence, but she is in turn befriended by the town bad boy who has a secret of his own; in Desaliento, Sabina surrounds herself with other young drifters who spend their time looking for love and then fleeing from it until reality catches up with one of them; and in Vida, the urgency of Sabina's self-imposed exile in Miami fades when she meets an enigmatic Colombian woman with a tragic past. Patricia Engel maps landscapes both actual and interior in this stunning debut, and the constant throughout is Sabina serious, witty, alternately cautious and reckless, open to transformation yet skeptical of its lasting power. Infused by a hard-won, edgy wisdom, Vida introduces a sensational new literary voice.
©2010 Patricia Engel. Recorded by arrangement with Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
WordTheatre: Lost & Found, Volume 1
Summary
WordTheatre, the short story performance specialists, casts the perfect actors to bring great contemporary writing to life. Recorded live with many of the writers present, these nine exquisitely crafted stories navigate fragile yet defining moments of transformation that inform us at every age. Perhaps a time or a place, a friend or relative, those memories that leaves an indelible mark, spark the imaginations of these wonderful authors. Vanessa Aspillaga reading "Lucho" by Patricia Engel Dean Chekvala reading "To Psychic Underworld" by Dan Chaon Cassidy Freeman reading "The Summer Before" by Alethea Black Mae Whitman reading "Swan Lake" by Meg Howrey Gary Cole reading "Walls" by Tod Goldberg Justin Chambers reading "Loser" by Aimee Bender Vincent Piazza reading "White Angel" by Michael Cunningham Eliza Pryor Nagel reading "The Russian Children Aren’t Happy" by Ellen Slezak Dana Delany reading "Sea World" by Janet Grillo Produced and directed by Cedering Fox; edited by Sara Bencivenga; mixed and mastered by Theo Mondle; music composed by Greg Chun. WordTheatre gives voice to great writing. We are an innovative, internationally recognized, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring empathy, curiosity, and conversation through powerful and entertaining performances, both live and recorded, of the world's best contemporary literature. We aim to ignite a passion for reading, writing and self-expression in our community and in future generations.
©2014 Cedering Fox (P)2014 WordTheatre
The Veins of the Ocean
Summary
Reina Castillo is an alluring young woman whose beloved brother is serving a death sentence for a crime that shocked the community: throwing a baby off a bridge - a crime for which Reina secretly blames herself. With her brother's death, though devastated and in mourning, Reina is finally released from her prison vigil. Seeking anonymity, she moves to a sleepy town in the Florida Keys, where she meets Nesto Cadena, a recently exiled Cuban awaiting with hope the arrival of the children he left behind in Havana. Through Nesto's love of the sea and capacity for faith, Reina comes to understand her own connections to the life-giving and destructive forces of the ocean that surrounds her as well as its role in her family's troubled history, and in their companionship she begins to find freedom from the burden of guilt she carries for her brother's crime. Set in the vibrant coastal and Caribbean communities of Miami; the Florida Keys; Havana, Cuba; and Cartagena, Colombia, with The Veins of the Ocean, Patricia Engel delivers a profound and riveting Pan-American story of fractured lives finding solace and redemption in the beauty and power of the natural world - and in one another.
©2016 Patricia Engel (P)2016 Tantor