Hope lives in my writing, and in the whole story of my life, because I know, first-hand, that even in the darkest caves life can take root and smile at us for a long while.
I was born and raised in Bogotá, trained as a psychologist there, and studied creative writing in Madrid. I published Lilihappy, a memoir, in 2022. My second book, Malomalo, is finished and looking for a publisher. I write in Spanish and live between Barcelona and southern France.
Autofiction · 87,220 words · Complete manuscript · Unpublished
In this work of autofiction, Lila weaves together her work as a clinical psychologist at Casa Ofelia Uribe — a clandestine organization supporting women through unwanted pregnancies — and her own complicated private life. The book traces the strain of living through a period shaped by narcoterrorism and by the structural violence of Colombian society, while the narrator raises her small son and tries to rebuild her emotional life.
An intimate look at women's resilience in the face of social and personal pain, in a convulsed historical moment.
For readers of Pilar Quintana and Annie Ernaux
Rights
World rights available. Spanish-language and translation rights unencumbered.
The full manuscript, a synopsis and a dossier are available on request. I answer my own mail.
II — Published
Lilihappy
Memoir · 2022 · 375 pages · Independently published · ISBN 978-84-125654-1-6
The story covers the years of my life in Colombia, and it runs through one of the most turbulent moments in my country's battered history. But death and the despair of those who went under along the way are not the only things that live in this book.
It also holds sisterhood, and the force of love in all its forms: it is the story of people who faced nothingness in order to build the meaning of their lives.
My story is also the story of many women feeling their way toward a gentler world, one governed by the economy of love.
Presented at the Gimnasio Moderno and at Casa Tomada, Bogotá, 2022, with Federico Díaz-Granados, Yolanda Ruiz and Arturo Guerrero.
World rights available. Spanish-language and translation rights unencumbered.
An English sample, translated by renowned Lisa Dillman, a synopsis, dossier, and full manuscript in Spanish are available on request. I answer my own mail.
III — Practice
The work behind the books
Alongside the writing, I work with people who want to put their own memory on the page — to reinterpret themselves, or to understand someone else better. The workshops run in Spanish, online and in France.
They started as a way of teaching writers to build characters who contradict themselves and still hold together. It turns out to be the same muscle: understanding the real people who shaped us, and inventing people a reader will believe. What we remember, and how we choose to tell it, is where both jobs meet.
IV — About
A life spent listening to stories
I studied psychology at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and creative writing at the Escuela de Letras in Madrid. For years I worked with women and adolescents facing difficult decisions; that trade of listening is what holds up my writing today.
Lilihappy began as a newsletter, Tinto y memoria: one installment every Saturday for a year. I still write there from time to time, between books, and I run the activities of the Lectura y Voz Propia association as a volunteer.
Born
Bogotá, Colombia
Training
Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá). Creative writing, Escuela de Letras de Madrid.
