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Word Mingas

Oralitegraphies and Mirrored Visions on Oralitures and Indigenous Contemporary Literatures

Miguel Rocha Vivas

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Romance Studies
Published: 08/2021
Pages: 344
Subject: Literary Criticism, Language Arts and Disciplines
Print ISBN: 9781469667348
eBook ISBN: 9781469667355

DESCRIPTION

Word Mingas is an English-language translation by Paul M. Worley and Melissa Birkhofer of the award-winning book Mingas de la palabra written by Miguel Rocha Vivas (Casa de las Americas, 2016). It is an encompassing study of oralitures--multilayered cultural knowledge shared through the power of orality--and written literatures by authors from Colombia and other regions in the hemisphere who self-identify as Indigenous. In consequential dialogue with the most recent theories of decoloniality and interculturality, the book weaves and compares two threads of literary critique Rocha Vivas names as oralitegraphies and mirrored visions. The study focuses on texts produced from the early 1990s to the present, and offers productive avenues to discuss, understand, and foster dialogue with the wide array of symbolic-literary systems of the original peoples. Rocha Vivas offers a valuable contribution to the much-needed dialogue on the basic rights of self-representation, self-determination, and the coexistence of multiple systems of representation and identity.