Book Two of the Neapolitan Novels

In 2012, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels.
The Story of a New Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker’s James Wood described as “large, captivating, amiably peopled...a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal,” Ferrante proves herself to be one of Italy’s most accomplished storytellers. She writes vividly about a specific neighborhood of Naples from the late-1950s through to the current day and about two remarkable young women who are very much the products of that place and time. Yet in doing so she has created a world in which readers will recognize themselves and has drawn a marvelously nuanced portrait of friendship.

In The Story of a New Name, Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighborhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges. In these Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante, the acclaimed author of The Days of Abandonment, gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.

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.

• Dec 9 2015
  The Best Book I Read This Year
  — The Atlantic
• Nov 3 2015
  The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
  — James Reads Books
• Sep 28 2015
  "It’s raw and brilliant, with a light that shines unblinking on its characters.”
  — The Phraser
• Sep 20 2015
  "Are Ferrante’s books autobiographical, as everyone speculates? Yes, perhaps: we all have difficult friendships; but these also seem to be about different aspects of the same person."
  — Mirabile Dictu
• Sep 19 2015
  "The prose isn't pretty or elegant: the English translation (by Ann Goldstein) is terrifically simple and understated . . . But it's the power of the emotions bleeding through the words that grips you."
  — The Idle Woman
• Sep 13 2015
  "Ferrante is able to evoke a world that [. . .] is both ‘fresh’ and ‘alive’, full of mystery and beauty, and one that deserves to be read and re-read."
  — Bookish Ramblings