Author Matthew Enyinnah is a married Nigerian businessman living in Italy. He describes You Don’t Want To Be Identified as based on a true story that happened between four people living in those two countries. The specific details of the story are hard to come by, though, as this book is difficult to read and nearly impossible to understand.
Long blocks of run-on text make the going tough. One small excerpt demonstrates the challenge involved in discerning meaning: “At the motorpark, there was a dispute between the couple and him over why they don’t want to take him to the airport and abandon job for that day only. He indicated that at least, the action could have shown that sign of cousin and expanding the relationship between them more and even to the inlaw, while they refused, then moved away with their car.”
This is a fair representation of the whole book, though it’s missing the character names that are so heavily dashed with accents as to look like they were caught in a downpour, which adds to the imposing reading experience.
The text is interspersed with photographs, sometimes of a person covering his or her face with a newspaper or magazine. Then the same photo might be tilted from vertical to horizontal orientation. Why this is done is never adequately explained.
In sum, this may be the story of a love triangle, or even a trapezoid, but it’s hard to say. You Don’t Want To Be Identified is inscrutable.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.
