Mira tú

Knowing where to go can, at times, be boring. And not just boring, but maybe even harmful: imagine visiting a new place (or your own country, for that matter) by knowing exactly where to go. Because purposeful walking has an agenda, we do not adequately absorb certain aspects of the environment around us. This is why the drift connects walkers to the city: it is curiosity over knowledge, question over answer, surprises over (failed?) expectations. This is not an ordinary travel guide. This is a travel guide to get lost. A travel guide for the flâneur, the romantic stroller conceived by Charles Baudelaire and popularized by Walter Benjamin who wandered about the streets, the woods, and the unbeaten paths, with no clear purpose other than to wander. This is what this book is here to do.

Designed and illustrated by Piedad Rivadeneira, Inés Picchetti and the Felicidad team,  “Mira Tú” is an invitation to get lost, to look at it yourself, to discover new paths through the often overlooked art of not knowing what to do. The guide delightfully narrates dozens of Chile’s interesting anecdotes, secret stories, images, memories and forgotten facts, and hidden gems. Written by the journalist Juan Pablo Barros, edited by Academy Award-winning writer Gonzalo Maza, and edited by Aplaplac, Hueders and Felicidad, this unprecedented compilation stems from the cult television program of the same name aired on TVN: the programme that shared to the national audience all the fascinating and little known insightful information about the history and culture of Chile. It was impossible to resist the temptation to translate it into a collector's book that is ideal to use, browse and search. For us and those after us.

Why were there so many one-eyed people among the Pehuenches of the Conguillío forest? Was there ever a Chilean Ku Klux Klan? Was deforming their skull a fashion among the hammocks? Why was Sarah Bernhardt angry in Iquique? Where did the poets duel? Why did Chilean opera lovers drink vinegar? This 482-page book answers these and many other questions. This project was a labor of love – a five-year journey in getting lost, developing and finding a narrative, visualizing and designing that journey for others. The first edition of Mira Tú was released in bookstores in October 2014 and that same year it became the best-selling book in Chile, in the "non-fiction" category. To date it has sold over 30 thousand copies.