Ambar Past             Featured Readings

Ambar Past was born in Durham, North Carolina.  At the age of 23 Past immigrated to Mexico and became a Mexican citizen. As an itinerate teacher of natural dyes for the National Indian Institute, she spent years living in mud huts among Native American people in remote areas of Mexico, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. For more than 30 years she has made her home in the Highlands of Chiapas principally in rural hamlets where she learned to speak Tzotzil Mayan. Past is the creator of the graphic arts collective Taller Lenateros (The Lenateros Workshop) in San Cristobal de Las Casas. She also participated in the formation of Sna Jolobil, a weaving cooperative for Mayan artisans, the Mayan writers collective Sna Itz'ibajom, and is president of Libros Prehispanicos A. C.

Past's first writings were published in Tzotzil in the collective book Sloilichiltaktik (autobiographies of Tzotzil women), 1978, and Bon (a manual for Mayans on natural dyes), 1980. In Spanish she has published a number of chapbooks of her own poetry. For 30 years she has worked in the collecting, recording, and translation of Tzotzil ritual poetry, which appear in the bilingual anthologies, published by Taller Leateros, Conjuros y ebriedades, 1998, Incantations By Mayan Women and a music CD-book, Sueno conjuros desde el vientre de mi madre (in press). Her poems and stories have been published in anthologies and magazines in Spanish, English, Italian, Bosnian, Polish, Lithuanian, German, French, and Japanese.

She is the founder and director of the prize-winning journal for art and literature La Jicara, known as'the most beautiful magazine in Mexico.' Past's work has been shown in book arts exhibitions in the US, Mexico, Austria and Italy. She is the mother of artist Tila Rodriquez-Past, and she is currently preparing a hands-on activities book, Alchemy for Beginners and a collection of her stories, Men I Never Slept With.