Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante is a pseudonymous Italian author whose bestselling books include the popular Neapolitan Novels: 2011’s My Brilliant Friend, 2012’s The Story of a New Name, 2013’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and 2014’s The Story of the Lost Child. Ferrante’s novels have received recognition from the Man Booker Prize and the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and Ferrante herself has been listed as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people. Ferrante’s decision to publish her life’s work under a pseudonym has left many readers itching for answers as to her “true” identity—but many others insist that a woman publishing on her own terms heralds a new era in novel-writing and a new way for female writers to achieve recognition. In 2016, the Italian journalist Claudio Gatti published an article which purported to reveal the identity of the mysterious Ferrante—the article was controversial in nature and many readers denounced Gatti’s attempt to unmask the novelist. Elena Ferrante’s other novels include The Days of Abandonment and The Lost Daughter. Her work has been widely adapted for stage and screen; her 1992 novel Troubling Love was adapted into 1995 film called Nasty Love, while the Neapolitan Novels are currently being adapted into a sprawling 32-part television series for HBO. While little is known of Ferrante’s biography, her work revolves around themes of female friendship, love and infidelity, fractured communities, and the unhappy, often transactional nature of relationships between men and women.