The unnamed Uruguayan protagonist has accidentally booked the wrong ticket on a train journey between France and Spain and, finds himself in the Spanish border town of Irun with eight hours to kill.
He meets a Spanish girl and her friend who befriend him, but we fear her intentions are not good.
An unseen twist in the plot reveals our protagonist is not who he seems.
Narrated in a disturbing second person present tense that constantly questions the reader and with a rhythm marked by suspense and inspired by the author's own experience of booking the wrong ticket on a train journey.
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Never Tell Anyone Your Name by Federico Ivanier is published by HopeRoad on 02 November 2023 and is translated by Claire Storey.
As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour, I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.
Extract from Never Tell Anyone Your Name by Federico Ivanier
And this is how you open your eyes, slowly, enjoying the movement of the train, even though you have no clue where you’re going. For a second you prefer to think you don’t know anything; it’s a moment to start over again, an instant when you’re someone else. It’s a second of nothingness, perfect innocence that stretches infinitely, so far that you’re swimming in it, submerged and happy.
Because, after all, where are you?
You were dreaming. You remember that much, albeit somewhat vaguely. That’s how dreams disappear; gradually, like a mirage on the highway. But anyway, you know all too well what the apparition in your mind was about: the same ghost as always. You were dreaming of Lucrecia’s heavenly eyes. On repeat. You’re still dreaming of her, even though you should have forgotten her by now. Your brain continues to function beyond your control; you keep telling it to forget her, but it ignores you. It floats off and remembers.
The calm of rest is over. You’re fully awake now.
And the distance comes back to you: she, Lucrecia, an ocean away. She, Lucrecia, beyond the Atlantic. She, Lucrecia, in Montevideo. Or so you presume. She, Lucrecia, six thousand five hundred miles away.
Six thousand five hundred miles. A distance you struggle to even imagine. A distance impossible to feel with your senses, a crushing, inhuman distance. Even so, it’s closer than the distance she put between you when she said, ‘It’s over,’ three weeks ago, the night before you left for France.
Seven letters, pronounced in a single second, more powerful than the following twelve hours on the plane. Seven letters more powerful than those six thousand five hundred miles.
Lucrecia, the girl with the white T-shirt, heavenly eyes, long hair and denim shorts. Almost a cliché. A girl like a photo in a rock video, like a character in a road movie, hitching a ride in the middle of the desert. Lucrecia, who wasn’t angry or sad when she told you. You’d been expecting it, however much you tell yourself otherwise. And although you never wanted that moment to arrive, it did, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You didn’t do anything then, and you still don’t know if you can do anything now. You didn’t even reply, protest, or stand up to her. You just let it happen. She gave you a piece of paper with a hand-written poem on it, told you those two words and then disappeared. A poem and a goodbye.
And you? You just stood there. Watching her. Letting it all happen.
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He has written over twenty books that have been published across Latin America.
On more than one occasion, his works have been awarded the National Prize for Literature from the Uruguayan Ministry for Education and Culture as well as the Premio Bartolome Hidalgo, one of the country's most important literary awards.
Federico has also work occasionally as a screenwriter and teaches English as a second language.
Claire Storey translates from German and Spanish into English.
She specialises in literature for younger readers with a particular interest in MG and YA fiction.
In 2021, she was awarded funding from Arts Council England for a project focusing on Young Adult Literature from Latin America, of which Never Tell Anyone Your Name is a part.
Claire is a regular contributor and former co-editor of the blog at World Kid Lit, an online platform that aims to highlight books in translation for younger readers.
She regularly volunteers in schools talking about careers with languages and was named Outreach Champion 2021 by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.
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