Infinite Country

By Patricia Engel

Infinite Country 

opens a door onto a generally little known Latin America country –Colombia, its beauty, its myths and its people, but also on its deep rooted problems, all woven into a story of a family in search for a better life elsewhere and broken up by a forced deportation of the father.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, Colombia is a country devastated by some fifty years of violence. A young couple, Elena and Mauro try to make their life together as best as they can in the midst of the mounting brutality of the guerrilla warfare, as it reaches even the capital, Bogotá. When their daughter Talia is born, the ever grimmer economic prospects force the decision to emigrate to the US.

They settle eventually in Houston, but as their family grows, they have to keep moving on; when they decide to ignore the expiration of their visa, the family find themselves in the  ”underground” of the undocumented and the threat of discovery complicates an already difficult life. When Mauro is finally deported, Elena, now left alone to care for their three small children, makes a difficult decision that will ease her burdens but splinter the family: to send their oldest daughter Talia back to Bogotá, to be cared for by her father and grandmother, which results in the drama we learn about at the beginning of the novel.
Patricia Engel is herself the daughter of Colombian immigrants and a dual citizen. She puts her experience and feelings into the alternating narratives by Mauro and Elena, as well as by their children, Karina, Nando, and Talia—each one tackling their divided existence, their allegiance to the past, the future, to one another, and to themselves. Engel never lets the reader spend much time with any given character. Instead, we bounce between them, sometimes confusingly.

The allusions to the Andean myths, gives the novel a lyrical overtones that contrast with the harsh reality of daily life in Bogotá and even more with the  hardships of the undocumented in America. Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one uprooted family, who can never quite overcome their ties with their home country, even when they are ultimately successful in the adopted one. 

It exposes the immigration policies of the US and tackles the immigrants´ problems in the US a little differently, focusing on this one family in a limited area, but giving an in-depth description of the obstacles, sometimes seemingly petty, and the lack of compassion and understanding (in any language), in the “host” country – an experience that so many have endured—and are enduring right now.

Not everyone in the group was enthusiastic about the novel, but it was a ”good read”, with many interesting, often touching, observations.

Blanka