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She went to Guatemala to teach. She found a war.

Published about 1 month ago • 1 min read

All Things Hidden: A Witness to Paradise Lost

by Lesley Miles

She came to Guatemala to teach organic gardening—only to find herself in the opening days of a hidden war.

In 1977, twenty-one-year-old Lesley Miles arrived in the remote Ixcán jungle to help a cooperative of Maya families build a sustainable future. But as she worked to establish an agricultural center, the region was quietly becoming a battleground—caught between the Guatemalan military, guerrilla forces, and global interests.

Stranded when her organization collapsed, Lesley witnessed the beginning of a devastating campaign that would destroy entire villages and claim over 200,000 lives.

Forty years later, her journals and photographs reveal a powerful firsthand account of hope, survival, and a conflict the world ignored.

Some stories wait decades to be told. This is one you won’t forget.

“... the breathtaking and daring story of one woman’s relatively innocent entry into a benevolent Mayan community-building experience in Guatemala where she discovers a deep and dangerous complexity of American involvement in arms dealing, proxy wars, and genocide.

—Lidia Yuknavitch, National Bestselling author of The Chronology of Water

About the Author

Lesley Miles, a practicing architect for 40 years has designed schools, libraries and community spaces. She wrote her first story about her grandfather, an ANZAC in WWI, while in New Zealand in 2018. Reading, A London Love Story, on a KQED Perspectives segment encouraged her to start writing about her experiences in Guatemala in the late 1970s.

Her memoir All Things Hidden: A Witness to Paradise Lost, covers her time in Ixcán, Guatemala, her return and search for what happened to the community.

Studying with Corporeal Writing, writer Haley Campbell, and author and teacher Jordan Rosenfeld, she writes as she notes, just the facts. When she left Ixcán in 1979, she stored textiles, letters, journals and photos of the two years she had lived in a village of 15 families. Unboxing this hidden period of her life, she relives this time, writing of her experiences including a historical perspective.

Her Substack, I’ve Got a Story for That, runs the gamut from architecture and Guatemala to stories about war, pets, children and plants. https://www.lesleylmiles.com/

Friday, April 17, 6 PM | Morgan Hill, CA.

All Things Hidden Book Launch with Lesley Miles in conversation with author Jordan Rosenfeld

This launch event is SOLD OUT, but stay tuned for a video of the sold out event!

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