Episode 11 --- Patricia Engel
Photo Credit: Elliot & Erick Jimenez
This episode of the ReadMore podcast was sponsored by the Miami Book Fair International.
Patricia Engel's The Veins of the Ocean was published earlier this month to critical acclaim. It's the Colombian-American author's third novel. Her first two, Vida and It's Not Love, It's Just Paris, were both award-winning with Vida landing on several best-of lists of 2010.
The Veins of the Ocean explores the idea of generational trauma. The protagonist, Reina Castillo, has devoted a large part of her adult life to her brother, Carlito, a man who's serving a life sentence for murdering a baby. She struggles with guilt about what she perceives as her role in her brother's crime and has trouble seeing her self worth until she meets Nesto, a Cuban immigrant who recently arrived in the United States. The story takes place in Miami and the Florida Keys as well as in Colombia and Cuba.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
Interview Highlights:
Patricia reveals:
- what fascinated her about "the prisons that society perpetuates"
- why she felt compelled to write about colorism
- the things that irk her when she's reading a novel
We have a free, signed copy of The Veins of the Ocean to give away to the first listener who sends us a tweet (@ReadMorePodcast) or writes on our Facebook page telling us Patricia's favorite comic book to read as a kid.
Contest Rules:
If you have won a ReadMore giveaway in the last 90 days, you're ineligible for this contest. Also, if you and I have ever linked arms and sang "Hark The Sound" together more than once, you're out of luck. ReadMore does not have a friends and family plan! But I can offer you my thoughts on needed basketball rule changes at both the college and the NBA level.
You can also support ReadMore when you order this book from Amazon.com using the link below: