The Puerto Rican Literature Project

A poet, professor, and editor, María Pastor Rodríguez, better known as Mara Pastor, was born in1980 in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Pastor holds an MA in literature from the University of Notre Dame and a PhD in Literature from the University of Michigan. In 2005, she contributed to Cuentos de oficio: Antología de cuentistas emergentes en Puerto Rico (Terranova Editores, 2005). That same year, she published her first book, Alabalacera (Terranova Editores, 2005). Pastor is the author of Candada por error (Atarraya Cartonera & Sin brújula Ediciones, 2009), Poemas para fomentar el turismo (Neutrinos, 2015 y Ediciones del Flamboyán, 2022), Arcadian Boutique (UNAM, 2014), and Falsa heladería (Aguadulce Ediciones, 2018). She is also the author of the bilingual poetry collections Children of Another Hour (Argos Books, 2014), translated by Noel Black, and As Though the Wound Heard (Cardboard House Press, 2017), translated by María José Giménez. One of her most recent books, Deuda Natal (AZ Press, 2021), translated by Anna Rosenwong and María José Giménez, was awarded The Academy of American Poets’ 2020 Ambroggio Prize. She has published in World Literature Today, Latin American Literature Today, The Common, The Puerto Rico Review, Círculo de poesía, Periódico de poesía, and Gatopardo, among others. She was also the editor of A toda costa (Editorial Elefanta, 2018), an anthology of contemporary Puerto Rican short stories. Currently, Pastor is a professor and the academic leader of the Creative Writing and Literature Program at the Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her most recent book is Las horas extra (La Impresora, 2022).

Works Cited

“Mara Pastor.” Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poet/mara-pastor.

“Mara Pastor Rodriguez, PhD” Universidad del Sagrado Corazon,  https://www.sagrado.edu/en/mara-pastor-rodriguez-ph-d/.

Pastor, Mara. Interview conducted by Ana Castillo Muñoz. El proyecto de la literatura puertorriqueña, 2024.