First-Generation Fiction

How do you kill an Argentine? Make him stand on his ego and jump. So goes the old Colombian joke as told by Sabina, a Colombian-American girl from New Jersey, the daughter of immigrants, and the protagonist of Patricia Engel’s Vida. In one of Vida’s nine stories, Sabina spends time...

By Amanda McCorquodale

September 2, 2010

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How do you kill an Argentine? Make him stand on his ego and jump. So goes the old Colombian joke as told by Sabina, a Colombian-American girl from New Jersey, the daughter of immigrants, and the protagonist of Patricia Engel’s Vida. In one of Vida’s nine stories, Sabina spends time in Miami, falling for an Argentine and hitting up local hot spots such as Opium and Churchill’s. According to Engel, “Sabina has to decide what kind of woman she wants to be in this world in motion that children of exiles exist in.” Like her protagonist, Engel is a Colombian-American from New Jersey, but she says the resemblance stops there. She moved to Miami in 2004, earned her MFA from Florida International University, and first fell in love with prose via Martin Gore’s songwriting for Depeche Mode. This Tuesday at 7 p.m., hear her discuss her debut work at Books & Books.
Tue., Sept. 21, 8 p.m., 2010

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