Books
When A Woman Rises
When a woman rises, a community is nourished. In the Maya township of Chenalhó in Chiapas, Veronica, a teenage girl, is recovering from a disastrous early marriage. Spurred on by a community program of women telling their stories, she asks her mother Magdalena to record the story of her growing up and that of her best friend, Lucia. Magdalena, step by step, day by day, summons the soul of her comadre who has disappeared. She tells how, as young girls, they yearned to be teachers. How poverty, cultural beliefs, and gender roles stole away their dreams. Magdalena married and bore children, finding expression as a community organizer. Lucia’s path diverged radically. Her gift was to be a healing woman, but without knowing how or why, she fell in love with a nun. Distraught, she joined the Zapatistas in the wilderness and struggled with alcoholism. Through it all, Magdalena and Lucia maintained their deep friendship. Then Lucia went north to work in the fields and disappeared. Veronica, with her mother’s help, will carry this understanding into the future.
ISBN 978-1-941026-84-7, trade paper $16.95; published by Cinco Puntos Press in 2018. Now distributed by Lee and Low Books
From the book jacket:
“With the deft touch of a novelist and the sharp eye of an anthropologist, [Christine Eber] tells a luminous, spiritually-charged tale of an indigenous Maya community adapting to wrenching demands of the outside world. When a Woman Rises is a jewel of a book—engaging, moving, tragic, and ultimately transporting.”
—Peter Canby, Senior Editor, New Yorker
For a recent review by novelist JJ Amorowo Wilson go to swwordfiesta.org
Cuando una mujer se levanta
Thanks to the support of over 125 donors, 2,000 copies of Cuando una mujer se levanta, the Spanish translation by Camilo Pérez Bustillo of When a Woman Rises, are being made available for free in Chiapas, Mexico to the Maya people who inspired the book. The books were printed in April 2020 by Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Editorial in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México. Please see blog “Into Mayas’ Hands” on this webpage with the story of the Spanish edition.
ISBN 978-1-947627-40-6, trade paper, $16.95. Published in April 2021 by Cinco Puntos Press. Now distributed by Lee and Low Books
Pasar bien por la tierra: El tejido vivo de una mujer maya-tzotzil de Chiapas, México
Spanish translation by Mayra Valtierrez of The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman: Pass Well Over the Earth, 2013.
Available on website: www.weaving-for-justice.org or in print version from Lulu.com. Also available on amazon.com
The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman of Chiapas. Mexico: Pass Well Over the Earth
Co-authored with “Antonia”
Most recent books about Chiapas, Mexico focus on political conflicts and the indigenous movement for human rights at the macro level. None has explored those conflicts and struggles in depth through an individual woman’s life story. In her own words, “Antonia,” a Tsotsil-speaking Maya woman from San Pedro Chenalhó tells her memories of childhood through adulthood. Recounting her experiences participating in weaving cooperatives, the progressive Catholic church, and the Zapatista movement, she offers a vivid and nuanced picture of working for social justice while trying to remain true to her people’s traditions.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011. Available for purchase at utpress.utexas.edu and amazon.com
Agua de esperanza, agua de pesar: Mujeres y alcohol en un pueblo Maya de los altos de Chiapas
Spanish translation of Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow. Guatemala City: CIRMA (Centro de Investigaciones de Mesomerica) and Plumsock Mesoamerican Studies, Vermont, 2008. This edition contains extensive updated footnotes not included in the 1995 English edition.
Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town : Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow
This pioneering ethnography looks at women and drinking in the Highland Chiapas, Mexico, community of San Pedro Chenalhó to address the issues of women’s identities, roles, relationships, and sources of power. In a new epilogue, Christine Eber describes how events of the last decade, including the Zapatista uprising, have strengthened women’s resolve to gain greater control over their lives by controlling the effects of alcohol in the community.
Women and Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of Hope, Water of Sorrow, updated & revised edition with epilogue. (1st edition, 1995; 2nd edition, 2000). University of Texas Press, Austin. Also available on Amazon.com
Women of Chiapas: Making History in Times of struggle and HopeCo- editor with Christine Kovic
Women of Chiapas documents the concerns, visions, and struggles of women in Chiapas, Mexico. Deepening the awareness of the inequalities faced by these women, and demonstrating their determination to work together to improve the conditions of their communities, the book revolves around issues that define women’s recent struggles: structural violence and armed conflict; religion and empowerment; and women’s organizing.
This is a beautiful and extraordinary work of solidarity with those who live in political and economic marginality: the indigenous people of Chiapas. Anyone who wants to know what it means to be a woman in Mexico should read it. It is the deepest understanding of social change in Chiapas that has ever been written.
– Elena Poniatowska, author of Massacre in Mexico and Here’s to You, Jesusa!
New York & London: Routledge, 2003. Available for purchase at routledge.com and amazon.com
Just Momma and Me
During the 1970s Lollipop Power, Inc. a feminist publishing collective in Chapel Hill North Carolina, published non-sexist and non-racist picture books for children at a time when main stream publishers were not. This pioneering collective is no longer in operation, but when it was, it inspired countless children and their parents to envision and embrace a multicultural world.
Chapel Hill, NC: Lollipop Power, Inc. 1975