Hay Festival Querétaro 2023 – Indigenous Cultures

On the International Day of the Indigenous Woman, we present the documentary Mukí sopalírili aligué gawíchi nirúgame (“The Woman of Stars and Mountains”), about the heartbreaking, incredible story of the Raramuri woman Rita Patiño, from Chihuahua. Rita left her community in the Tarahumara mountains and walked all the way to Kansas, where she was interned in a psychiatric hospital against her will, since the hospital authorities were unable to determine who she was, where she came from and what language she spoke.

Directed by Santiago Esteinou

Duration: 100 min

Screening of the documentary followed by a discussion with Ángeles Cruz and Santiago Esteinou

Based on the challenges of taking the verse of Garry Gottfriedson (Canada) from English into Spanish for Tierra y lenguaje, a collection of some of his most representative work, we present a conversation between the Secwépecm poet and the indigenous literature specialist, Luz María Lepe (Mexico), about the attention and care needed to translate poetry by native authors from one colonial language into another, moderated by the journalist and educator Ingrid Bejerman (Brazil-Canada).

2024 is the thirtieth anniversary of one the most important revolutionary uprisings of the last half century, one that resonated internationally and which continues to inspire emancipatory movements around the world. The Zapatista movement, with its egalitarian, community organization, its advocacy of traditional knowledge, and its impressive capacity for communication (it was one of the first resistance movements to use the Internet to publicise its ideas), offers us a living alternative to raw capitalism. At this event, Rosaluz Pérez Espinosa, who has studied at first hand the role of women in the construction of the Zapatista political project; and Guiomar Rovira (Spain), journalist, writer and author of Zapata vive, will talk to Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil.

Libraries and archives, repositories of history… and of histories, in plural. At this event, we start from the idea of how non-hegemonic history, in the Mexican case particularly the history of native peoples, has been researched through the existence of extraordinary archives. With Baruc Martínez Díaz (Chinampero people of San Pedro Tláhuac), historian, translator, poet, teacher and author of Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia. Un intelectual indígena en el México decimonónico, a work that shows us the existence, continuity and scope of the indigenous intellectual tradition in Mexico. And with Javier Eduardo Ramírez López (Mexico), who works with the Teotihuacan Diocese and Chalco Valley Archives, where 4,000 documents are being digitalized; these documents, in Náhuatl and colonial Spanish, cover the period from the first decades of colonialism to Independence. Both will talk to the Zoque thinker and academic Josefa Sánchez Contreras (Mexico).

Two fascinating poets tell us about their recent work, in conversation with the literary critic Guillermo Núñez. With Garry Gottfriedson (Canada), poet, rancher and member of the Secwepemc community, who has just published Tierra y lenguaje, a representative sample of his poetry, published in bilingual format (English/Spanish). Poeta griego arcaico is the most recent book by Luis Felipe Fabre (Mexico), poet, fiction writer and dramatist, who returns to poetry after a number of years away, taking up the mythological story of Medusa and Perseus. This is a masterly retelling of ancient legends, bringing them into dialogue with us and our present, with a poetic language so precise and evocative that the images he sings will reverberate long in the minds of readers. Introduced by Ingrid Bejerman.