Literary historical intersections

A dramatic encounter between literature and anthropology made history in 1986 in Chiapas, a southern Mexican state at the socio-economic periphery of Mexico. Despite being historically and structurally marginalised as a border state and the heartland of Mayan civilisation in Mexico, Chiapas became a global centre for revolutionary politics when the Zapatista armed rebellion awakened the world in 1994 to a new model of indigenous resurgence and anti-capitalist uprising. The encounter took place during a literary contest for indigenous people in Chiapas. The contest – which followed the emergence of the first collective of contemporary indigenous writers in 1982, Sna Jtz’ibajom [The House of the Writer] – was coordinated by local institutions, anthropological research centres, indigenous cultural organisations and national education centres. ¹ Participating authors translated their works, from the original Mayan languages into Spanish.