Mining and Mapping Life with Patricia Engel

At BOMB Magazine, Patricia Engel speaks to fellow author Ingrid Rojas Contreras about her latest novel, Infinite Country, and how storytelling was instilled within her from an early age. ” I was bred on narratives,” Engel says, “and so my mind unconsciously assembles lived experience into story, searching for meaning, symbols, working out character psychologies and trails of cause and effect. Storytelling has allowed me to mine and map my own life, and also given me an outlet with which to understand human chaos. I stay with writing because it’s endlessly nourishing, and I also see it as an offering to those who came before me and those who will come after.”