“Her writing is completely uncompromising, which is something that has been helped, I think, by the fact that she protects her identity,” Ferri tells BBC Culture. Whether writing about female friendships, adolescence, sex, motherhood, marriage or class, she is breathtakingly bold in both the detail and the honesty with which she tackles her subjects. “Here is a writer who is telling the truth,” says Jonathan Franzen in the 2019 documentary, Ferrante Fever – and Ferrante’s truth is more unflinching than most. There’s even a booming Ferrante tourism industry in Naples.Īs impressive as all this is, her impact goes deeper. To date, the Neapolitan novels have sold 15 million copies worldwide, are published in 45 languages, and have been adapted into a critically-acclaimed TV series (the second season aired earlier this year). If they have something to say, they will soon find readers if not, they won’t.” In a letter to her publisher when she was first signed, Ferrante explained her decision, saying: “I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. When no-one was interested, they set up their own publishing house, Europa Editions, in 2005 to publish Ferrante and other international literature in the UK and US.įor some, the author’s decision to remain anonymous added extra allure – though when a journalist claimed to have unmasked her in 2016, fans angrily defended her right to privacy. By then her Italian publisher was sure there was a wider audience for her writing, and tried to find a US publisher for the book. Her next, The Days of Abandonment, came ten years later. Her first novel, L’amore molesto, came out in 1992 (translated into English as Troubling Love in 2006). She’s singular because her writing is both compulsively readable and incredibly textured and full of literary beauty, depth and rhythm.”įerrante was a familiar name in her native Italy long before she found worldwide success. “I’m a massive fan and I’d never try and imitate her, but I look up to her work massively.

“Reading Ferrante is a completely immersive intellectual and emotional experience,” says Sharlene Teo, whose debut novel Ponti drew comparisons with Ferrante when it came out in 2018. Ferrante herself has defied expectations of what stories writers – specifically women – get to tell, and in doing so, has shifted the literary landscape both in her native Italy and around the world.

That her new book opens with a question mark over what makes a compelling narrative is fitting.

Elena ferrante book order