Decolonizing trends in contemporary Maya literature: Frameworks for reading Isaac Carrillo Can

This dissertation explores the work of the late author Isaac Carrillo Can (1983 – 2017), including the novel U yóok’otilo’ob áak’ab/Danzas de la noche (2011), poems in the Maya/Spanish anthology Kuxa’an t’aan: Voz viva del Mayab (2012), and the play U kíimil Yuum K’iin/La muerte del Sol (2012), among others. Scholarship of Maya literature, especially Unwriting Maya Literature (2019) by literary scholars Paul M. Worley and Rita M. Palacios, moves to “recover” Maya cultural production from non-Maya cultural influences. Drawing from postcolonial theory, anthropology, and Latin American cultural studies, this dissertation modifies Worley and Palacios’ framework. It argues that scholars should consider 1), Maya-language philosophical perspectives in critical readings of literary works alongside Western literary criticism and 2), the individuality of Indigenous authors to acknowledge their unique contributions as public intellectuals and cultural representatives. The first chapter provides information about the social contexts within which Isaac Carrillo Can developed as an author and also provides a review of the current state of literary criticism of Maya literatures. The second chapter, “Inláak’ech in the Works of Isaac Carrillo Can: Revisiting Cultural Logic for Contemporary Maya Literature,” provides an introductory analysis of Isaac Carrillo Can’s major works. The main argument is that readers acknowledge that Indigenous language authors are individuals rather than archetypal representatives of their languages and cultures, borrowing from linguistic anthropologist Paja Faudree’s research which suggests that we gain greater insight to the dynamics of Indigenous authorship at the group level by honoring the individuality of authors. Specifically, the chapter explores the apparently contradictory argument that Isaac Carrillo Can’s definition of inláak’ech (“my other is you,” or “you are the other me”) is both particular to Carrillo Can, but also a broader example of a Maya cultural logic of intersubjectivity. “Iknal and the Third Space in Carrillo Can’s Self-Translated Maya/Spanish Poetry” argues that self-translation between Maya and Castilian allows authors to write two distinct versions of their works addressing distinct audiences. Postcolonial philosopher Homi Bhabha’s “Third Space” provides a model for examining these relationships. The chapter introduces iknal, a Maya-language deictic term which has been theorized by linguistic anthropologist William F. Hanks and Maya academic Juan Castillo Cocom. In Maya/Castilian poetry, the iknal points to an invisible narrator commenting upon relationships between languages and social groups. Chapter Three, then, examines iknal, an intersubjective field of agency which connotes both absence and presence, self and other, to show that Carrillo Can uses the Maya and Castilian version of the same poem to create a third space. The fourth chapter, “Universalizing Maya Theatre,” argues that Carrillo Can elevates the status of Maya language theatre in two principal ways: 1), By asserting that Maya language is sufficient for describing the destinies of all people and 2), through autoethnographic self-critique. Carrillo Can’s play U kíimil Yuum K’iin/La muerte del Sol forwards a message consistent with decoloniality as described by Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro Gómez by addressing local and universal audiences simultaneously. Turning to Jakaltek anthropologist Victor Montejo’s approaches to pan-Maya activism, Chapter 3 also examines the play, U yóok’ot wáayo’ob/Danza de los Wáay, and examines how it presents an autoethnographic self-critique. In so doing, departs from previous examples of theatre that present unidimensional Maya protagonists. The focus on an individual author problematizes unconscious assumptions that Maya authors all share the same ideas about language, culture, and politics. The framework presented in this dissertation addresses concerns regarding both the individual agency of Indigenous authors and the collective agency of the groups in which they claim membership by taking into account 1), the unique interpretations of collective knowledge that Isaac Carrillo Can forwards through his work and 2), the extratextual, social circumstances through which other authors like him share their work with growing, international audiences. In brief, it shows the importance of contemporary Maya literature through the analysis of Isaac Carrillo Can’s work, which stands alone.

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