A Lyrical Love Letter to an Adopted Land

Maria Escobar Truijjo's 'Cartographies of the Woods'

Maria Escobar Trujillo has spent much of the last five years walking.

Since moving here to Lions Bay with her partner Catalina Lopez Correa and their dog Luna, most of that walking has been in the woods in and around the village. And out of all the walking has come a book of poetic snapshots of her life in the mountains, among the trees and by the water.

Escobar Trujillo's Cartographies of the Woods is her second book, following Tiempo Del Sur, a novel published in 2018. This latest volume is written in both Spanish and English, and is described as a "moving reflection on migration and belonging, human and natural relations, life and death, and love and kinship."

Inspired by her sister-in-law, a poet, Escobar Trujillo began writing the first pieces that would become this book during the pandemic, which she spent with her family in the mountains of Colombia. She sees the Spanish and English elements as both essential parts of her identity.  

The book is a collection of experiences both in and out of the woods, and is rife with Escobar Trujillo's wildlife encounters with eagles and bears, hawks and coyotes, and with the earth itself, in the wake of the storm and landslide that took two lives last year. on December 14 at Battani Creek.

"My heart and soul are here," she says. "The most important poem for me is 'After the Pain', which tells the story of that day in December."

The book is entirely produced by women, including the author, publisher, illustrator and translator. For Escobar Trujillo, it is a very personal endeavour.

"I want the people who live here in Lions Bay, in Howe Sound, to be able to read it, and find something personal to their own experience behind my words," she says. "This is traditional land, and there is an importance, a privilege, to care for it. If we don't take care of it, we lose it."

The book is published in Colombia by P&P Editores, but Escobar Trujillo is celebrating the launch with a number of events in Canada this fall; here in BC at the University of British Columbia and on Granville Island in October, and also in Ottawa and Toronto.

"It's my dream to launch the book here in Lions Bay," she says. "This place has been my inspiration!"

Maria Escobar Trujillo's new book Cartographies of the Woods will be available at the upcoming Lions Bay Christmas Fair.

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