A song I don’t know

Micaela Chirif and Juan Palomino
Mexico City, Fondo de Cultura Económica (Economic Culture Fund), 2020
ISBN: 9786071659071

♦ IBBY Honour List 2022
♦ Highly Recommended – Fundalectura 2023

“Sometimes I get a phone call from a friend who’s been dead for years.”

With this verse, the poem-turned-picture book begins. Always narrated in the first person, the story captures a moment of reunion between two people who love each other but have been separated by death. The meeting becomes possible—surprisingly—through an impossible phone call that lasts an entire afternoon. During this time, the two protagonists—she from the realm of the living and he from the nowhere of death—share, once again, the warmth of everyday intimacy.

A Song I Don’t Know is a book that delicately explores loss and the vital bonds of love that stubbornly endure.

Reviews

“Can a book be carried like a talisman? I had never thought about it before, but since this book came into my hands, I haven’t wanted to let it go… I keep it close, even when I sleep, and if I could, I would wear it around my neck, like a magical object to transmute pain.”
—Paula Herrera, Una Tribu Bookstore

“Micaela stays true to her premise (a phone call from a dead friend), develops it without hesitation, and reaffirms it in every verse. She doesn’t let go—even after hanging up. That’s why her poem is so powerful and beautiful to read: because she gifts us all that impossible yet real call.”
—Adolfo Córdova

A song I don´t know. Interview
https://trome.pe/actualidad/micaela-chirif-una-cancion-que-no-conozco-literatura-entrevista-noticia/

The remembrance prevails. Interview
https://www.cronica.com.mx/notas-el_recuerdo_se_impone_por_ser_algo_involuntario__micaela_chirif-1176615-2021.html