Basic Collection of Indigenous People Literature of Colombia

This collection, a project led and organized by Colombia’s Ministry of Culture in 2009, gathers oral narratives, poetry, myth, and historical documents from indigenous peoples across the country, with the aim of making their literary and cultural production available through the national public library network and social organizations. The collection was conceived both as an act of recognition toward indigenous authors and communities and as a resource for intercultural education, cultural policy, and creative practice.

The volumes span a wide geographic and cultural range, including traditions from the Andes, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the Serranía del Perijá, and the Amazon basin. The compilation and scholarly annotation of the anthologies was carried out by Miguel Andrés Rocha Vivas, recipient of the 2009 Bogotá Research in Literature Award for his work on mytho-literary traditions and indigenous writers in Colombia, and by Fernando Urbina Rangel, responsible for the volume on Uitoto oral tradition. The collection also includes individual bilingual poetry collections (Spanish-Quechua, Spanish-Camëntsá, and Spanish-Wayuunaiki) by three internationally recognized indigenous poets: Fredy Chikangana (Yanacona people), Hugo Jamioy Juagibioy (Camëntsá people), and Miguel Ángel López Hernández / Vito Apüshana (Wayuu people). A separate volume documents the indigenous social movement from the early twentieth century to the present through texts by indigenous leaders and thinkers.

The collection builds on the precedent of Hugo Niño’s 1978 Literatura de Colombia aborigen (Colcultura) while extending its scope and public reach. Its editorial framework engages critically with the concept of “indigenous literatures” and the related notion of oraliteratura, drawing on Rocha Vivas’s definition of these as collective, frequently ritual elaborations of the word (oral and written) belonging to the living heritage of the continent’s originary communities.

Editorial Direction by José Antonio Carbonel Blanco. Editorial coordination by María Villa Largacha.