Life Before Dolphins

By Kirmen Uribe

A hybrid and moving novel mixing history, memoir, and fiction that speaks to universal themes of family, immigration, and history.

Awarded a fellowship at the New York Public Library, our narrator, Uribe, reflects on his life as an antimilitarist in the Basque Country, while researching the Hungarian activist and pacifist Rosika Schwimmer. As Uribe uncovers Rosika's purpose in World War I, he struggles to understand his own ambitions as a migrant in a new country. The narrative weaves myth, personal history, and the forgotten story of a stateless feminist into a meditation on crossing borders--geographical, emotional, and historical. Formally bold, the novel blends an unfinished manuscript, a pandemic letter, and even a TikTok video, speaking to a moment when questions of migration, gender equality, and historical memory feel increasingly urgent.

Evocative and genre-blurring, Life Before Dolphins is a celebration of resilience, imagination, and the secret language of those who choose to live softly in a hard world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566897734
• ISBN13: 9781566897730
• Release Date: January 2027
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 228 Pages