Yana Lucila Lema Otavalo

Yana Lucila Lema Otavalo

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).