Yana Lucila Lema Otavalo
Ñawinchay, mayqin simipi:
Yana Lucila Lema Otavalo (1974) is a Kichwa (Otavalo, Ecuador) poet, storyteller, videographer, translator, cultural promoter, and community journalist and commentator (comunicadora social). She has participated in indigenous organizations such as CONAIE, ECUARUNARI and CONFENIAE and was awarded a prize for the best “Traditional Medicine film” at the III Abya-Yala First Nations Film and Video Festival (CONAIE, 1999). She has been recognized with a number of national and international awards for her work as a cultural promoter and in the genres of indigenous language testimonials and children’s short fiction, including: Colectivo Mujeres, Imágenes y Testimonios (2000); I Bienal Continental de Artes Indígenas Contemporáneas, México (2013); “Árbol de la Vida”, Asociación de Escritores Indígenas de México, Génova (2015), “Mujeres del Bicentenario 2020”, Municipality of Guayaquil, and “Premio Nacional Darío Guevara Mayorga a la mejor obra publicada en la categoría cuento infantil” awarded by the Municipality of Quito for her juvenile fiction piece “Chaska” (2016).
Lema Otavalo has organized four meetings of the Abya-Yala Literature Festival “La Fiesta del Maíz” (2012-2016), as well as the first “Indigenous Micro Book Fair”, Bibliopawkar, Peguche, Ecuador (2017). She is the editor and compiler of various indigenous language poetry anthologies in Ecuador, including: Hatun Taki, Poemas a la Madre Tierra y a los Abuelos (2013); Chawpi Pachapi Arawikuna, Nuestra Propia Palabra (2015); and Ñawpa Pachamanta Purik Rimaykuna, Antiguas palabras andantes, 2016. She has published the personal bilingual poetry collection (Kichwa-Spanish) Tamyawan Shamukupani, Tujaal ediciones, 2018. Lema Otavalo currently teaches courses at the Central University of Ecuador (Universidad Central del Ecuador).
Author's books
Leave It Now Mamaku
So you’re washing once again mamaku, dear mother?
it’s raining now, don’t wash now
there’s water enough
and dirty clothing enough
for your sorrows,
and some days without rain.
Stop washing more clothes mamaku
stop scouring against that rock,
it doesn’t hold your sadness
stop hurting your hands mamaku
these clothes are just¬ dirty tatters,
not my punishment.
Leave it now mamaku,
I beg you
let your tears transform into foamy water
and this wretchedness in the air pursues me
relentlessly
Stop twisting those clothes, no more wringing,
it does no good.
these waters cannot free you from your pain.
Leave it now, leave that timeworn rock
it cannot speak,
leave its pores to guard you laments
speak no more to it.
Leave it now mamaku, for the rain carries on.
52
tamya pakarimuni sumaklla
pankalla
mana pipa makipi wataytukushka kuyaylla chumpikunawanlla
pillurishka
ñuka samaypash tamya yaku urmakshinami wakakun
ñuka aychapash
ñawpa urkukunashina pukumukun ñawpa mamakunapa ushay
katimushka
chinkarishka ayllukunapa puma aya
tarimushka ñuka hatun mamami
chayamushka
tamya yakushina
mishki shimikunata apamushpa kunkarishka takikunata
uyachishpa paymi paypakaman shamushka may ninan
warmi kashka
43
Tukuyllami kanchik
Kanchikra
Kaymi kanchik
—mamatapash charirkanchikmi
taytatapash charirkanchikmi
paykunami ñukanchik umapi sisa yakuta
sumak tullpu sisakunata churarka
alli kawsayta charichun nishpa
paykunami
llullu urpikunapa
millay pumakunapa
may illapakunapa
kuyllurkunapa shutikunawan shutichirka
ñukanchik shutikunaka
shuk shuk urkukunapi
shuk shuk rumikunapi
shuk shuk pukyukunapi
mana chinkarina shimikunami kan— shinami wawakunaman nishka
nin Otavalo kuraka taytaka