Spanish / Argentina
Quizás en el tren
(Maybe in the train)
Blasco, Martín
(text)
Ferrari, Andrea
(text)
Buenos Aires: Santillana, 2018. – 144 p.
(Series: Loqueleo)
ISBN 978-950-46-5505-3
City life | Suburban train | Theft | Communication
Reading age: 14+
White Ravens issue: 2018
The two high-profile Argentinian authors Martín Blasco and Andrea Ferrari have let themselves in on an adventure. Each one thought up a protagonist: Ferrari, a young woman from the Chinese community of the Argentinian capital city, Blasco, a young man, a self-assured “professional” pickpocket. Their paths cross twice: once in a suburban train, where Jorge steals the cell phone of Alma (whose real name is Jiang Li), and on the last pages of the open-ended story. In alternating chapters, the two characters tell of their lives, their everyday encounters, which reveal their hopes, possibilities, life plans, and (missed) opportunities. The stories of the two strangers are woven together through the authors’ literary “ping pong” game. They wrote the twenty-five chapters in “hand-off” fashion, each time picking up from where their co-author’s last chapter left off and continuing the story. A well-rounded, read-worthy book arises from this unusual, collaborative writing process.