Writer, linguist, researcher, and ayuujk (Mixe) activist, a language spoken by more than one hundred thousand people in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
CCCB, 2023 / CC BY-NC-SA Gloria Solsona
Participates in...
Friday 24 October, 21.30 - 22.30
Menp Këtäkp: Ayuujk Futurism
Born in Ayutla, in the Mexican region of Oaxaca, Yásnaya Elena A. Gil has established herself as a leading voice in indigenous thinking and the defence of language rights in Latin America. She graduated in Hispanic Language and Literatures at the National Autonomous University of Mexico-UNAM, later specializing in Hispanic Linguistics at the same university. Aguilar’s work is focused on the study and promotion of linguistic diversity, especially with regards to the endangered original languages of Mexico, as is the case with her native tongue, Ayuujk (a variant within the Mixe languages).
She is one of the founders of Colmix (Colectivo Mixe), a network devoted to the research, dissemination and teaching of the Mixe language, thought and history, and has been coordinator of the Juan de Córdova Research Library in Oaxaca, a public space specializing in the multicultural heritage of Mesoamerica. Alongside her teaching and research work, she is involved in raising awareness for environmental rights, particularly defending the right to access water for indigenous populations in Mexico. She is also the creator, with Pablo Montaño and Carlos Tornell, of the conversational podcast Humo. Señales para otros mundos posibles, about alternatives to the climate crisis. She is the author, among other books, of Ää. Manifiestos sobre la diversidad lingüística (Almadía, 2023) and Un nosaltres sense estat (Raig Verd, 2025/OnA Libros, 2018), and has contributed to publications such as Extractivismo (Revista de la Universidad de México), El árbol de la palabra (UNAM and University of Texas, Austin, 2023) and Volver a contar (Anagrama, 2021), as part of a project by the Hay Festival and the British Museum. She has also contributed to journals such as Gatopardo and writes regularly for El País.
From October to December 2025, Yásnaya Elena A. Gil is the CCCB Writer-in-Residence, the international residency program of the CCCB in collaboration with the UOC and funded by the MIR-PUIG Private Foundation.
Organized by:
With the support of:
With the collaboration of:
