One of The Guardian's Best Books of the Year: Personal writings by the anonymous author who became a literary phenomenon with My Brilliant Friend.
The writer known as Elena Ferrante has taken pains to hide her identity in the hope that readers would focus on her body of work. But in this volume, she invites us into Elena Ferrante's workshop and offers a glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk--those drawers from which emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of the Neapolitan Novels, the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" (The Atlantic).
Consisting of over twenty years of letters, essays, reflections, and interviews, it is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a consummate passion for writing. In these pages, Ferrante answers many of her readers' questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let her books live autonomous lives. She discusses her thoughts and concerns as her novels are being adapted into films. She talks about the challenge of finding concise answers to interview questions. She explains the joys and the struggles of writing, the anguish of composing a story only to discover that that story isn't good enough. She contemplates her relationship with psychoanalysis, with the cities she has lived in, with motherhood, with feminism, and with her childhood as a storehouse for memories, impressions, and fantasies. The result is a vibrant and intimate self-portrait of a writer at work.
"Everyone should read anything with Ferrante's name on it." --The Boston Globe
Industry Reviews
"Praise for" Elena Ferrante Elena Ferrante s decision to remain biographically unavailable is her greatest gift to readers, and maybe her boldest creative gesture. David Kurnick, "Public Books" Everyoneshould read anything with Ferrante s name on it. Eugenia Williamson, "The Boston Globe" Ferrante has written about female identity with a heft and sharpness unmatched by anyone since Doris Lessing. Elizabeth Lowry, "The Wall Street Journal" Ferrante has become Italy s best known writer. In our era of social media accessibility, shameless self-promotion, and hot young celebrity culture, this is nothing short of astounding. Gina Frangello, "Electric Literature" Ferrante s writing seems to say something that hasn t been said before it isn t easy to specify what this is in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep. Joanna Biggs, "The London Review of Books" To disagree over the quality of a Ferrante passage is often to run up against what you cannot answer or digest. Jedediah Purdy, "The Los Angeles Review of Books" " Who, in American literature today, deals with the subtleties of class difference in such a painful and sensitive way, while achieving even a fraction of Ferrante s massive popularity? ... We must go to the fictionalized Naples of Ferrante to read the story we want to believe can happen again in our country. Alissa Quart, "BuzzFeed" Ferrante has become Italy s best known writer. In our era of social media accessibility, shameless self-promotion, and hot young celebrity culture, this is nothing short of astounding. Gina Frangello, "Electric Literature" Elena Ferrante is by now perhaps Italy s most celebrated living writer ... [She] has written about female identity with a heft and sharpness unmatched by anyone since Doris Lessing. Elizabeth Lowry, "The Wall Street Journal" Ferrante s writing seems to say something that hasn t been said before it isn t easy to specify what this is in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep. Joanna Biggs, "The London Review of Books" To disagree over the quality of a Ferrante passage is often to run up against what you cannot answer or digest. Jedediah Purdy, "The Los Angeles Review of Books" Elena Ferrante s decision to remain biographically unavailable is her greatest gift to readers, and maybe her boldest creative gesture. David Kurnick, "Public Books"
