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citylightsbooks · 3 years

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5 Questions with Patricia Engel, Author of Infinite Country

Patricia Engel is the author of The Veins of the Ocean, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize; It's Not Love, It's Just Paris, winner of the International Latino Book Award; and Vida, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and Young Lions Fiction Awards, New York Times Notable Book, and winner of Colombia's national book award, the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her stories appear in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. Born to Colombian parents, Patricia teaches creative writing at the University of Miami.

Patricia Engel is joined by Roberto Lovato, Jean Guerrero, and Juliana Delgado Lopera to celebrate the launch of her new novel Infinite Country, published by Simon & Schuster, in our City Lights LIVE! discussion series on Thursday, March 18th

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Where are you writing to us from?

I'm at my apartment in Miami, which has been my home base for the past seventeen years.

What’s kept you sane during the pandemic?

Gratitude for my good health and stability amid so much chaos and uncertainty. On the daily, it's long walks, sunlight, checking in with my husband, family and friends, sharing laughter and finding small reasons to celebrate life.

What are 3 books you always recommend to people?

Here are three by incredible Colombian writers: Oblivion (El olvido que seremos) by Hector Abad Faciolince, The Bitch (La perra) by Pilar Quintana, and Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco.

Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?

My general influences are those that arrived earliest in my life: Albert Camus, Anais Nin, Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Laura Restrepo, Maryse Condé, and Pablo Neruda, to name a few. With Infinite Country, I wanted to write a slim, compressed novel that spanned years, decades, and generations, but still felt urgent, like a single held breath. Books that I admire that accomplish that are Sula by Toni Morrison, In the Beginning was the Sea by Tómas González, Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, The Lover by Marguerite Duras, and Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector.

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

This is one of my quiet dreams. I'm not sure where I would open it but I would probably name it after one of my childhood cats, Camus. Certain bestsellers, because I would likely push them on every customer, would be Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat and Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

#5questions #PatriciaEngel #InfiniteCountry #SimonandSchuster #fiction #RobertoLovato #JeanGuerrero #JulianaDelgadoLopero #CityLights

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itsredwritinghood · 3 years

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I’m continuing my historical education with this #nonfictionnovember read by #robertolovato I lived in Australia for the first half of the 80’s and then moved to San Francisco for the 2nd half. I lived in the Mission and remember when many restaurant and store signs started changing from “Mexican” to “El Salvadoran”, but, I’m ashamed to say, I never understood the reasoning behind it. Granted, I did have a lot going on with trying to adjust to being back in America, to a new step mother and little sister, to public school and making new friends, to learning all the pop culture my Mom had restricted, and to trying to get know my Dad before he hit the expiration date his doctors had given which he’d already pushed the boundaries on. #Unforgetting took me back and filled me in on what was going on then and through to now. Immigration is a huge issue and often people make quick judgements on it without knowing all sides of the issue. There’s a lot more to it than just the laws, building walls, ICE raids, and the slurs/lies spouted on TV/internet. This #memoir goes back and forth through time retelling the experiences of different members of Mr. Lovato’s family both in the US and El Salvador while also explaining the wars, US involvement in them, deportation, caravans of immigrants, gangs, and much more. This is a great starting point, but I know there’s more to know. Any recommendations for other books around the immigration issue would be much appreciated. #bookstagram #bookgeek #readersofinstagram #bookworm #immigration #booknerd #readthisbook #bookish #reading #bibliophile #nonfiction #bookaddict #bookaholic #bookaholicsanonymous #bibliotherapy #books #migration #gangs #elsalvador #learninghistory #somuchtolearn #audiobooks #librarybooks #audiobookstagram #booksonlibby https://www.instagram.com/p/CH-ylhxAm-w/?igshid=11ipmz0zcqm4u

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diosodictador-blog · 11 years

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"America is growing stronger, freer thanks to the Bolivarian Revolution" -Roberto Lovato

#robertolovato #larevoluciónbolivariana #hugochavez #elpueblovenezolano #comandantechavez #populismo

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citylightsbooks · 4 years

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5 Questions with Roberto Lovato and Myriam Gurba

Roberto Lovato is a journalist and a member of The Writers Grotto. He is one of the country's leading writers and thinkers on Central American gangs, refugees, violence and other issues. Lovato is also a co-founder of #DignidadLiteraria, the national movement formed to combat the invisibility and silencing of Latinx stories and books in the U.S. publishing industry. He is also recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center and a former fellow at UC Berkeley's Latinx Research Center. His new book is Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas, published by HarperCollins. He lives in San Francisco.

Myriam Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true-crime memoir Mean, a New York Times editors' choice. O, the Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers' Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. She lives in Long Beach, California. Roberto and Myriam discuss Roberto’s new book, Unforgetting, in our City Lights LIVE! discussion series on Tuesday, September, 8th.

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Where are you writing to us from?

Roberto Lovato: The Outer Mission in San Francisco.

Myriam Gurba: Los Angeles County.

What’s kept you sane this year?

RL: My family, the dream of revolution, and new love in my life.

MG: Long walks. Petting animals. Laughing at assholes.

What are 3 books you always recommend to people?

RL: Muriel Rukeyser's The Life of Poetry, James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, Roque Dalton's Poemas Clandestinos.

MG: The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo.

Which writers, artists, and others influence your work in general, and this book, specifically?

RL:

Roque Dalton, his example as a poet-warrior.

Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, in terms of the combination of action, poetry, and philosophy in The Matrix (the first movie, which is the only worthy one)

James Baldwin

Dante's Inferno

Audre Lorde

Adrienne Rich

Toni Morrison's Beloved

Albert Camus

Hannah Arendt

Mario Puzo & Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather

Victor Serge

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

RL: I'd open a bookstore in New York near the part on Broadway where the Big Five publishers are headquartered. In honor of Latino intellectuality, I'd call it Frijolegentsia and Roque Dalton's Poemas Clandestinos would be selling like mad as we plot to subvert publishing as we know it.

MG: I would open a bookstore in LA and call it Book Bitch. My bestsellers would be written by queer women of color with radical politics.

#RobertoLovato #CityLightsBooks #Unforgetting #MyriamGurba #5questions

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