Author visit: Christine Eber – When a Woman Rises

UPPSALA | Wednesday 12th Sept at 19.00

When a woman rises — no man is left behind and a community is nourished. 

Join us for a reading and discussion together with Christine Eber – author, anthropologist and activist from New Mexico. 

Her work explores the lives of indigenous women and how they have been organizing to defend their lands and lives. 

Her latest novel When a Woman Rises, tells of two Zapatista women, bound by cultural expectations, and how they struggle to express the truth of their lives in the highlands of Chiapas. 

Wednesday 12th Sept at 19.00 
Tickets 60:- Refreshments and snacks. 
Get your ticket at the bookshop today – limited number of seats.

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WHEN A WOMAN RISES — no man is left behind and 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 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 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. 

In 1987, Christine Engla Eber lived for a year with a family in San Pedro Chenalhó, doing fieldwork for her PhD in Anthropology. She shared daily life with women and their families, witnessing the difficulties they faced. It changed her life. Now, as a respected anthropologist, she continues to work with the indigenous women of Chiapas, visiting communities on a regular basis and supporting the woman-organized weaving collectives in Zapatista Communities. She lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.