Ámbar Past

Ámbar Past, poet and alchemist, is the creator of the graphic arts collective Taller Leñateros (The Woodlanders’ Workshop) in San Cristóbal de Las Casas. She also participated in the formation of Sna Jolobil, a weaving cooperative for Mayan artisans, the Mayan writers collective Sna Jtz’ibajom, and is president of Libros Prehispánicos A.C. Past’s first writings were published in Tzotzil in the collective book Slo’il jchiltaktik (Autobiographies of Tzotzil Women), 1978, and Bon, a bilingual (Tzotzil-Spanish) manual for Mayans on natural dyes,1980. Past has a number of books of poetry in Spanish, most recently Huracana. Her poems and stories have been published in anthologies and magazines in Spanish, English, Italian, Bosnian, Polish, German, French, and Japanese. In 2008, she was honored by the Japan Poet’s Club and invited to spend the month of December in Japan, offering lectures and poetry readings. For 30 years Ámbar Past has worked in the collecting, recording, and translation of Tzotzil ritual poetry, which appear in the bilingual anthologies, Conjuros y ebriedades(1998) Incantations by Mayan Women and a music CD-book, Disco de los Conjuros. She is the founder and director of La Jicara, a journal for art and literature.