Collection directed by Allison Bigelow

Original receipt form

Comité asesor: Arturo Arias, Allison Bigelow, Gloria Chacón y Juan Sánchez Martínez

Series Information

According to the Ethnologue (2023), Latin America and the Caribbean are home to more than 920 living Indigenous languages, and many thousands of others that are no longer spoken. The language map of the region ranges from Guaraní, Quechua, and dozens of Mayan languages, the official languages of Paraguay, Bolivia, Perú, and Guatemala, to endangered languages like Akawaio, spoken by people who live across the national borders of English-speaking Guayana, Portuguese-speaking Brazil, and Spanish-speaking Venezuela. Throughout the region, local sign languages and creole languages that combine Amerindian, African, and European vocabularies, syntaxes, and grammars create a complex register of communication and index of relationships with plant, animal, river, and human nations.

And yet, artists who write in these many hundreds of Indigenous languages have limited opportunities to share their work in print. This series represents a small but important contribution to increasing the visibility of Indigenous poetics and promoting exchanges of knowledge and culture throughout the Americas. Each book offers a triple translation, with poems written in the author’s native language that are followed by translations into Spanish and English. Many of the poets in the series work across languages, and they routinely collaborate with the editors and translators to ensure that readers will understand what they say and what they leave unsaid. Many other Indigenous poets from Latin America and the Caribbean write only or primarily in languages like Spanish or French, and we hope to publish their work, too, as the series develops over time.

Allison Bigelow