Isaac Esau Carrillo Can

Isaac Esau Carrillo Can (Peto, Yucatán, 1983 - Mérida, Yucatán, 2017) was a transdisciplinary artist: a novelist, poet, musician, playwright, actor, and visual artist. His work has been recognized with many prizes. In 2010, he earned the Nezahualcóyotl National Prize for Literature in Mexican Languages for his novel U yóok’otilo’ob áak’ab / Danzas de la noche [Dances of the night] and in 2007, he was awarded the Waldemar Noh Tzec National Prize for Maya Literature for the short story “Ba’alo’ob mix juntéen u’uya’ak” / “Cosas nunca antes oídas” [Things never heard before]. In addition to his own writing, he worked as an editor and coordinator of anthologies. As a visual artist, he created the visual and performance art piece “Uj,” which was performed at the Fredric Jameson Gallery of Duke University, North Carolina in 2014 and in the Huret & Spector Art Gallery of Boston, Massachusetts in 2015. He was also a member of the musical group “Agua y miel,” and he was an editorial consultant for the children’s project “Kanules del Mundo Maya” in 2014. Critics have indicated that Isaac Esau Carrillo Can’s writing “slides in the metonymy of the dance of ancestral knowledge over the rain, the paths of the stars, the permanent movement between life and death, and why not, the creation that communicates between the roots of the universe.”