Patricia Engel is a Colombian-American writer, professor of creative writing at the University of Miami,[1] and author of five books, including Vida,[2] which was a PEN/Hemingway Fiction Award Finalist and winner of the Premio Biblioteca de Narrativa Colombiana,[3] Colombia's national prize in literature.

"[26] Engel's debut novel, It's Not Love, It's Just Paris,[27] received the International Latino Book Award in 2014[28] and was praised by Edwidge Danticat, who said the novel contained one of her favorite passages in literature.

[29] The love story, set in Paris at the turn of the millennium, was also praised by Roxanne Gay, writing for The Nation, who called it "an absorbing debut novel.

"[30] Her novel The Veins of the Ocean was awarded the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize[31] and named a New York Times Editors' Choice[32] and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year.

[45] Engel is a literary editor of the Miami Rail,[46] a quarterly publication providing critical coverage of arts, politics and culture.

[47] In 2023, Engel won the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, "a literary award given annually by Longwood University to a talented American writer who experiments with form, explores a range of voices and merits further recognition.