Virgin Trails: A Secular Pilgrimage

In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, humble journeyman painters would depict the Virgin Mary in city walls and cobblestones. Their identities have long been erased by time, and they are remembered today only as madonnari, the Madonna painters.

In Virgin Trails, author Robert Ward sets out to become a modern-day madonnaro, painting a contemporary portrait of the most beloved figure in Catholic theology. As Ward points out, Mary has little to say in the Bible itself and our image of her has been built piece by piece over two millennia. To understand how we have come to view her, then, we must return to the great Marian cathedrals, shrines and pilgrimages of Christian Europe. So from Paris to Lourdes, and from the Camino de Santiago to Loreto, Ward's curious, wry and intelligent quest to find the truth of Mary unfolds.

And it unfolds with true Chaucerian delight. Full of colour, character and conversation, Virgin Trails is as much a portrait of the people Ward meets and the places he visits as it is of Mary.

At once a thought-provoking examination of the nature of spirituality and belief, and an affirmation of the beauty of the human spirit, Virgin Trails is a stunning debut from a major new talent.

Robert Ward's travel writings and short fiction have appeared in many newspapers and literary journals including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Globe and Mail. A graduate in literature and religion from St. Michael's College, University of Toronto (where he was "the lone atheist in a crowd of Catholics"), he completed his graduate work at the University of Western Ontario (a thesis on Salman Rushdie), and for several years taught English in Japan and Canada. He claims to be fluent in five languages.