Ellen Pirá Wassu is animal, river, tree, root and seed. She is also a human being and writer, with a doctorate in Comparative Modernities: Literatures, Arts and Cultures, from the Centro de Estudos Humanísticos at Universidade do Minho (CEHUM). She researches the relations between expropriations of territory and identity in dominant visual and literary discourse, a study that she has termed “the poetics of expropriation”. In 2021, she published ixé ygara voltando pra y’kûá (Urutau) and in 2023, yby kûatiara um livro de terra (Urutau). Her writing has appeared in literary magazines and other collections, including the works: Volta pra tua terra, an anthology of antifascist and antiracist poets in Portugal, 2021 (Urutau); Guerreiras da ancestralidade, 2022 (Editora Amare); and Literatura Indígena — Sou semente, plantação, fruto… sou encanto: A potência das mulheres indígenas do Brasil, 2023 (AJEB/SC). She is currently a columnist for AFROLIS, Journalism for Black and racialised women in Portugal and worldwide. Her practice incorporates art, poetry, performance, activism, criticism, anti-colonial studies, essays, encounters, river swims and talking to flowers.