Languages and cultures of the Americas. Andean women's writing: book presentations and readings

This event is the inaugural activity of the Colloque International Warmikuna (femmes) : oralité, mémoire et autochtonie, to be held December 17-19, 2025 at Inalco, Campus Condorcet and MSH Paris Nord.

Organization: Salomé Cárdenas Muñoz (EHESS, CESPRA/Université Paris Cité), César Itier (INALCO, CERLOM) and Tania Romero Barrios (Université Paris 8, LER/CERLOM/IFEA) .

At this meeting, which will be attended by Samay Cañamar Maldonado (Ecuador) and Olivia Reginaldo Enríquez (Peru), Quechua philologist César Itier and ethnomusicologist Sisa Calapi will present the latest publications by these authors. In their works, they explore the Andean territory and the role of the beings that inhabit it, such as the wakas, the apus, the kucha or the chificha, and give them a voice through the plasticity of poetry and storytelling. Through sensory and sound narratives, they reveal the realities of gender violence as well as the cultural imaginaries that have indelibly marked the lives of men, women and children from the valley to the puna of the Andes. This meeting is a unique opportunity to discover the synergies revealed by Andean Quechua and Quichua literature.

Languages: Spanish, Quechua, quichua

Program

Description

Autrices and books

Samay Cañamar Maldonado Kichwa author from the Camuendo community (Ecuador). Psychologist, writer, translator and bilingual (Quichua - Spanish) columnist for the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo, she is also the author of several books, including Shunku-yay (2021), Kawsarina (2023), Yani (2025) and Maia (2025), as well as co-editor of Murmullos (2025). Her work has been awarded the Darío Guevara Mayorga prize in 2024, the "Alma 593" prize in 2022, as well as the La Estación del Arte poetry festival in Spain. She has also collaborated on articles and essays for the Sur-Sud, T&T Clark and Abya-Yala publishing houses. Her poems have been included in various international anthologies and presented in Europe, Africa and the Americas. A bilingual and intercultural researcher for FIMI, she is also a bilingual editor of stories and essays.

Book presentation sheet Shunkuyay, 2021

Poem collection: Shunku-yay or Mirarse en la eternidad del corazón

Year of publication: 2021

Bilingual edition: Quichua and Spanish

Author: Tsaywa Samay Cañamar Maldonado

Publishing house: Andarelle, Ecuador

Illustration: Manai Kowii

Genre:poetry

Summary

Shunku-yay or Looking into the eternity of the heart is Samay Cañamar's first collection of poems, a work born of a Kichwa and feminist outlook. Through its poetry, the book dialogues with the spiritual world, giving life to wakas and apus, and making visible the roles of women in the ayllu. The work is not only a tribute to the strength of Kichwas women and their caring work, but also a denunciation of the gender violence that has marked their lives. In its essence, Shunku-yay is an invitation to huyarina - self-love - as a necessary act of reconciliation with oneself.

Book presentation sheet Murmullos, 2025.

Book title: Rimaykuna, Murmullos, Whispers.

Publication year: October 2025

Trilingual edition: Kichwa, Spanish and English.

Authors: collective with the Kichwa Camuendo community and Loma Kunka

Coordinator/publisher: Tsaywa Samay Cañamar Maldonado

Publishing house: Atelier UIO, Ecuador.

Genre: Ancestral tales.

Summary

Community tales harbor many virtues and knowledge that have served to educate us within them. During the rimanakuy, an in-depth dialogue between children, teenagers and young people with the mamas and taytas of the communities of Camuendo, Camuendo Chico and Loma Kunka, we discovered the richness of Kichwa orality and oraliture, as well as an infinite number of versions of each of the stories told here.

These are stories blending the real, the fictional, the spiritual and the mystical. Thus appears the murmur of the lagoon of Imbakucha, intertwined and embodied by several characters; an elegant woman, a young girl with long hair, a paila of gold or bronze (pan of gold or bronze) connected to sacred paths like Wayku Chupa or Pinkultura in Camuendo.

The characters of the páramo also appear in the form of animal-person-myths such as the rabbit, the wolf, the churo or the chificha, teaching us the extreme between innocence, humility, wonder, laziness, cruelty or indifference. Which path to choose? Where to inhabit the mix?

On the path of exchange and editorial production, it is also necessary to acknowledge these naturalized cultural and gender stereotypes, in order to preserve a more palatable language for Kichwa children. May we read these tales with joy and discomfort, in order to rethink them and reconstruct their plots and endings. Let us create spaces for the exchange of the spoken and written word, for a world more empathetic towards living beings such as water, earth, mountains, animals and sacred spaces. May this book be an open door to generate dialogue, affection, knowledge and other paths.

Olivia REGINALDO is a poet, teacher and editor of the Quechua literary journal Atuqpa Chupan. She published the poetry collection Qichqa in 2024. Previously, she has published poems, reviews and articles in various magazines and online platforms. She has also participated in various translation projects between Quechua, Spanish and French. She holds a bachelor's degree in literature from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (Lima, Peru) and a master's degree in plurilingualism and interculturality from the University of Strasbourg (France).

Book presentation sheet Qichqa, 2025.

Book title: Qichqa

Publication year: January 2024

Language: quechua

Author: Olivia Reginaldo

Publishing house: Pakarina Ediciones, Lima

Genre: poetry

Summary

Qichqa is a collection of poems in three parts that explore the spaces of the Puna and their imaginary. In these spaces, different natural elements take the floor to express their interiority and/or challenge others.

Speakers

Sisa CALAPI, Franco-Ecuadorian doctoral student in ethnomusicology at the Centre de recherche en ethnomusicologie - Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative (Université Paris Nanterre, CREM/LESC). Her research takes place in the province of Imbabura, in collaboration with the Kichwa communities of Cotacachi. She is interested in the relationship between dance music and conflict, and in music and dance as acts of resistance.

Salomé CÁRDENAS MUÑOZ, doctoral student in sociology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS, CESPRA) and ATER at Université Paris Cité. Her main areas of research are the sociology of border spaces, education, social mobility, identity dynamics and interethnic relations. She is dedicated to the study of the democratic

experience in the Andes, the socio-history of the Ecuadorian state (centuries XX and XXI) and the mutations of public and intercultural education in the Kichwa - Otavalo valley of Imbabura province (Ecuador).

César ITIER (INALCO, CERLOM) is a philologist, professor of Quechua language and culture at Inalco and associate researcher at the Institut Français d'Études Andines (IFEA, Lima). His research focuses on the linguistic history of Quechua, ancient Quechua texts and oral literature in this language. Among other works, he has published La littérature orale quechua de la région de Cuzco - Pérou (Paris: Karthala - Langues O', 2004) and Palabras clave de la sociedad y la cultura incas (Lima: IFEA, 2023).

Tania ROMERO BARRIOS (Université Paris 8, LER/CERLOM/IFEA) is a doctoral student in Hispanic Studies at Université Paris 8. She is an elected member of the Scientific Council of the Institut des Amériques, the bearer of the trilingual (Quechua-French-Spanish), virtual and museographic project "Warmikuna - Voix, visages et mémoires" and co-president of the association Genre et féminismes dans les Amériques latines. Her areas of research are Peruvian literature (written and oral, in Spanish and Quechua), political violence, gender and Latin American feminisms. Her thesis project is entitled "Warmikunapa willakuynin (women's voices). Genre, violences et mémoires dans les récits du post-conflit armé péruvien (2000-2022)".

Book stand manager and book signing: Student, BUT Information et communication, mention métiers du livre (IUT Paris - Rives de Seine - Université Paris Cité) to be confirmed.