A map of the places we fall into is an intimate and fragmentary field notebook, a book of literary non-fiction in which professional observation is put aside to make way for what happens on the periphery. Through short scenes, scattered and deeply human, the author records what happens while the world happens: war, exile, life in conflict contexts, bad love, the blame, fear, the desire and tenderness that persists in the margins of your life.
From hospitals in Pakistan and Kenya to a theater in Jerusalem, passing through cemeteries in Cairo or the home in Heidelberg, This book does not aspire to explain the reason for the trips or the work of its author., but a listen to the noise that life makes when everything happens. The facts are not narrated, but what is left out of the reports: The looks, the minimal gestures, conversations that do not appear in any official record and that, however, they hold the essential.
A book about shared vulnerability: about how we all fall into similar places, even if we do it in different geographies
With lyrical prose, direct and honest, María writes about feelings in different geographical coordinates, about the body in every context and about the sadness that is not always told. A map of the places we fall is, especially, a book about shared vulnerability: about how we all fall into similar places, even if we do it in different geographies.
This hybrid text—halfway between a narrative essay, the field diary and the confession—proposes an ethics of looking and listening, and vindicates the value of the seemingly insignificant as a form of resistance. Because on the margins, where nothing is expected, almost everything still happens.
Then I saw a little boy picking his nose. "I have blood, I still have blood!”, He shouted excitedly when a vein burst and he began to bleed.. "Mother, I have life left inside!”I was inside a hospital in Pakistan where Afghan refugees were treated.. And I stopped what I was doing to open my notebook and write that the child still had life inside...
This is how this work begins...
THE AUTHOR
María is a doctoral student in international security, analyst in conflict contexts, advisor on medical and humanitarian missions, and writer. It combines its work in the field—especially in health-related fields, violence and forced displacement—with literary writing and the narrative essay.
He has lived and worked in different countries in Europe, Africa and Western Asia, and his writing is nourished by that migrant experience, as well as a radically human look at power systems, war and intimacy. Write in the press and specialized media.
And 2016 published his first book, “Land of Witches”, and is co-author of the book “Curando el mundo”, published in 2025.
THE EDITORIAL
Travel to the Past, VAP, is a publisher specializing in non-fiction travel narratives., international politics, culture, society and all those realities that make up today's hectic world. VAP aims to “only” narrate the world from multiple visions. There is no single truth, and we are certainly not in possession of it. That is why we believe that it is essential in these times of social trenches to return to the path of the old profession of chroniclers and offer very careful books that entertain., teach and offer discussions to those who read them.
We are willing to contradict ourselves with titles that may have different reflections, to publish one and the other, to print ideas that are not always ours. We don't come to tell ourselves, we come to tell the others. with a limit: There is no place in this project for anyone who raises their voice., that insult, that attacks.
That is the pact we offer to our readers..
