Elicura Chihuailaf was born in the indigenous community of Quechurewe, in the province of Cautín, Chile, in 1953. A noted Mapuche poet, Chihuailaf is the grandson of tribal chiefs. He was raised in a rural indigenous environment, something which has greatly influenced his work. Through his bilingual writing (in Spanish and in Mapundungun), Chihuailaf rescues, revists, and disseminates the indigenous culture of his people.

Mapuche poetry is an urban phenomenon, as many Mapuche people have migrated to the cities, and their poetry has become a vehicle for the project of an imaginative recovery of their ancestral land and heritage. Mapuche poets try to rescue the historical memory and traditional culture of their people by writing poetry and translating it into Mapudungun, the language of this indigenous group from Chile whose voices were silenced due to systematic oppression. Many of Chihuailaf’s poems bear witness to an urgent wish to dwell metaphorically in the land. He aims at recovering not only the forgotten or suppressed presence of ancestors, but also the voice of nature, considered sacred in Mapuche culture, and often threatened by industrial projects in traditional Mapuche lands. Other Mapuche cultural traditions present in the poetry of Chihuailaf are orality, respect for the wisdom of the elders, and imagination’s close relationship with nature, emphasized by the value accorded to non- and more-than-human beings.

Recognized in Chile and abroad, Chihuailaf’s work has been translated into several languages, such as German, French, Hungarian, English, and Swedish. He also won the Premio Nacional del Livro y dela Lectura for De sueños azules contrasueños, in 1994, Premio Municipal de Literatura de Santiago, in 1997, Premio a la mejor obra literaria for Recado confidencial a los chilenos, in 2000, and Premio Nacional de Poesía Jorge Teiller, in 2014, a major achievement for the dissemination of Mapuche culture in the literary world.