El Zorro de Abajo Editora

Why do we exist?

Founded in 2023, El Zorro de Abajo Editora specializes in content related to memory, orality, music, and traditional musical instruments, with a particular emphasis on the sounds and silences of Latin American Indigenous peoples and rural communities.

The name of the imprint comes from a short story included in the Huarochirí Manuscript, a 17th-century work translated from Quechua into Spanish by José María Arguedas in 1966 (Gods and Men of Huarochirí). In chapter 5 of the manuscript, two foxes — one "from above" and one "from below" — meet on the slopes of Mount Latauzaco to exchange news about their communities. I chose the fox from below as the imprint's symbol because his tale —a silenced episode about the abortion of a chief's daughter— remained unfinished in the original narrative, reflecting the need to give voice to marginalized stories.

What do we publish?

Open-access materials, meant to circulate: manuals on the construction and playing of traditional musical instruments; essays on sound-based orality and memory, acoustic landscapes, sounds and silences, rhythmic languages, and Indigenous and rural musical cultures, especially in Latin America; and chronicles about music as knowledge and instruments as archives.

We do not publish decontextualized music, hollow theoretical work, academic interpretations and unnecessary explanations, or folklorized cultural products.

Each title is available on this page, along with a technical summary and download link.

How do we publish?

Each book is crafted by hand: from writing to design, including editing and release. The entire process is self-managed, using available resources and with no intermediaries.

Almost always in PDF. Always with an ISBN and a free license.

Some follow industry standards. Others break them — because they weren't made to fit in, but to be heard.

There are no committees. No filters. No calls for submissions.

Who is it for?

For those who make sound with whatever they have on hand. For those who inherit melodies like others inherit surnames. For those who understand that history is also sung. And for those who don't need to explain the existence of a flute, a hum, or a pair of clapping hands.

Rights and distribution

All books are protected by copyright and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (by-nc-nd) 4.0 International license. This means the material may be copied and redistributed in any medium or format, as long as proper credit is given, it is not used commercially, and no derivative works are distributed.

In general terms, downloads are free, and circulation is intended for educational, community-based, and non-profit cultural spaces.

Sound knowledge is not bottled. It's released.

Published titles

This space is under construction. New content coming soon.