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Contributor

Juan Gregorio Regino

Contributor

Juan Gregorio Regino

Juan Gregorio Regino is one of the leading poets in indigenous languages in the Americas. He is Mazatec, born in 1962 in Chicicazapa, Solyaltepec, Oaxaca. In 1987, he received his bachelor’s degree in ethnoliguistics and a second degree from the Center for Research and Graduate Studies in Social Anthropology....

He was president of the Center for Writers in Indigenous Languages during the 1990s. Regino’s work follows two distinct paths. One is contemporary, the other is contemporary and based more closely in the Mesoamerican world. Among his best known works is the often translated poem to Maria Sabina, the famed shaman.

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Articles by Juan Gregorio Regino

Chants

By Juan Gregorio Regino

Note: This poem was originally written in Mazateco.IFour hundred zontles in the distance.Four hundred leagues toward infinity,light, darkness, shapes.The voice of the wise man reaches far,the singer,…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

Nothing Remains Empty

By Juan Gregorio Regino

There is a place in the Universe / where the memory of time / is recorded.

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris

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The Story of Naxá

By Juan Gregorio Regino

Note: This piece was originally written in Mazateco.Naxá, the daughter of Ts’uí and Sa, was deeply in love with a young campesino named Xungá, who lived in one of the most humble huts in the village.…

Translated from Spanish by Earl Shorris & Sylvia Sasson Shorris