Patricia Engel

Patricia Engel is a Colombian-American writer. She is the author of the book Vida, which was a PEN/Hemingway Fiction Award Finalist and winner of the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana, Colombia's national prize in literature. She was the first woman, and Vida the first book in translation, to receive the prize.She is also the author of It's Not Love, It's Just Paris, and the novel The Veins of the Ocean,which won the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle called Engel, "a unique and necessary voice for the Americas."

Engel was born to Colombian parents who immigrated to the United States. She was raised in New Jerseyand attended public schools. She earned a bachelor's degree in French and Art History from New York Universityin 1999 and a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction from Florida International University in 2007.

She has studied in Paris and has taught creative writing at the University of Miami and elsewhere.

Engel's work has appeared in The Sun, A Public Space, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, among many others, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2017,The Best American Mystery Stories 2014, and more. She was awarded the Boston Review Fiction Prizein 2008 for her story, "Desaliento," and was the recipient of a fellowship in literature from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2014.

She frequently writes about immigration, biculturalism, and transnationalismin both English and Spanish.

Her first book, Vida, was a finalist for the 2011 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and the 2011 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. In 2017, Vida received the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana, Colombia's national prize in literature. Vida was also named a New York Times Notable Book of 2010. It also won a Florida Book Awardand an Independent Publisher Book Awards and was named an NPR "Best Debut of the Year."

Engel's debut novel, It's Not Love, It's Just Paris, received the International Latino Book Award in 2014.

Her novel, The Veins of the Ocean, was awarded the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and named a New York Times Editors' Choiceand a San Francisco ChronicleBest Book of the Year.

Engel is a literary editor of the Miami Rail, a quarterly publication providing critical coverage of arts, politics and culture. In 2019, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction and an O. Henry Award for her story "Aguacero."

Engel now resides between Miami and New York.

• Recipient of John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Fiction, 2019
• Winner an O.Henry Award, 2019
• Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction, 2017
• Recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, 2014
• Winner of the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana, 2016
• Winner of the International Latino Book Award, 2014 and 2011.
• Pen/Hemingway Foundation Fiction Award Finalist, 2011.
• New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Finalist, 2011.
• Paterson Fiction Prize Finalist, 2011.
• Dayton Literary Peace Prize Long list, 2011.
• The Story Prize Long list, 2011.