Italy

Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), and the four novels known as the Neapolitan Quartet (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) which were published by Europa Editions between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. Ferrante is also the author of Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa, 2016), a children’s picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016), and a collection of personal essays illustrated by Andrea Ucini entitled Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019). The Lost Daughter will be made into a feature film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman. Her most recent novel is The Lying Life of Adults (Europa, 2020). In the Margins, a collection of original essays on reading and writing, was published by Europa in 2022.

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Latest reviews

“I started as a normal reader and ended up willing to give her a kidney.”

— LRB, Feb 18 2021

“The biggest show Netflix has in the pipeline in Italy is Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Life of Adults,” being produced by Domenico Procacci’s Fandango, which has a planned 2022 delivery date.”

— Variety, Feb 9 2021

“The most intense writing about the experiences and interior life of a girl on the cusp of adulthood that I have ever read.”

— The Financial Times, Sep 7 2020

Marcello Lino, translator for Intrinseca, Brazil Neapolitan dialect plays an important role in your novels, and for many of the characters is probably the natural expressive means. It is seldom manifested explicitly, however, and is, rather, described or expressed through...

— The Guardian, Sep 3 2020

“An immersive, complex, almost claustrophobic coming of age novel about family, belonging, class and sexuality.”

— RED, Sep 1 2020

“Exquisitely moody.”

— The Atlantic, Sep 1 2020

"Ferrante is a superb analyst of the ways in which families, despite their best intentions, distort children’s lives or propel them in unwished-for directions."

— The Observer, Aug 30 2020

"It’s vintage Ferrante: adolescence as a scrum of self-abasement, confusion and disillusion.”

— The Telegraph, Aug 30 2020

“Ms Ferrante’s genius lies in the laser focus she brings to bear on female experience. In often lacerating detail, she portrays their protracted battle to define themselves independently of men.”

— The Economist, Aug 29 2020

“Ferrante is finally back. Her new novel, the first since her blockbusting Neapolitan Quartet finished, takes us back to Naples.”

— The Times, Aug 29 2020

“Ferrante is a hypnotist. The opening sentence works like a swinging watch, and the reader is, for the next 300 pages, held under her spell.”

— The Spectator, Aug 29 2020

“Ferrante’s narrative, in Ann Goldstein’s exemplary translation, conjures with pungent eloquence the confusion, excitement and danger of the journey towards

— The Evening Standard, Aug 27 2020

“Elegantly written, humorous and perfect in its evocation of a flickering past”

— The Tatler, Aug 27 2020

"Ferrante confronts female sexual awakening with such an absence of romantic enchantment it leaves you gasping.“

— The Daily Mail, Aug 27 2020

This coming-of-age tale is about the darkness of adult deceit and family feuds. And yes, it’s set in Naples, says Alex O’Connell

— The Times, Aug 26 2020

“The Lying Life of Adults simply enriches a magnificent canon which began with Troubling Love nearly 30 years ago. There’s not a weak page, let alone a weak novel, among the eight to date.”

— The Art Desk, Aug 23 2020

An incendiary portrait of the volcanic currents of sex and betrayal rumbling away beneath polite society, it hints at more to come.

— The Mail on Sunday, Aug 22 2020

“Elena Ferrante is so good.... an astonishing, deeply moving tale of the sorts of wisdom, beauty and knowledge that remain as unruly as the determinedly inharmonious faces of these women.”

— The Guardian, Aug 19 2020

“The accurate and evocative depiction of adolescence is also a significant factor in the fierce devotion inspired by the works of the Italian writer Elena Ferrante... Ann Goldstein, who has translated all of Ferrante’s works into English, does so again here with precision...

— Esquire, Aug 16 2020

“Ferrante’s page-turner talent for suspenseful storytelling and scenes teeming with vivid characters finds terrific scope... From this gorgeous and squalid two-tier city that haunts her imagination comes another compulsive novel.”

— The Sunday Times, Aug 16 2020