Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante
Occupation Novelist
Language Italian
Genre Literary fiction
Notable works Neapolitan Novels, The Days of Abandonment
Years active 1992–present
Website
elenaferrante.com

Elena Ferrante (Italian pronunciation: [ˌɛːlena ferˈrante]) is the pseudonym of an Italian novelist. Ferrante's books, originally published in Italian, have been translated into English, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish, among other languages. Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels are among her best known works.[1]

She was named one of the 100 most influential people on the planet by Time magazine in 2016.[2]

Writing

Ferrante is the author of a half dozen novels, the best known of which[3] is the four-volume work[4] known as Neapolitan Novels, about two perceptive and intelligent girls from Naples who try to create lives for themselves within a violent and stultifying culture. The series consists of My Brilliant Friend (2012), The Story of a New Name (2013), Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay (2014), and The Story of the Lost Child (2015), which was nominated for the Strega Prize, an Italian literary award.[5][6]

Ferrante holds that "books, once they are written, have no need of their authors."[7] She has repeatedly argued that anonymity is a precondition for her work[8] and that keeping her true name out of the spotlight is key to her writing process.[9] According to Ferrante,

Once I knew that the completed book would make its way in the world without me, once I knew that nothing of the concrete, physical me would ever appear beside the volume—as if the book were a little dog and I were its master—it made me see something new about writing. I felt as though I had released the words from myself.[10]

The first appearance of her work in English was the publication of a short story entitled "Delia's Elevator," translated by Adria Frizzi in the anthology After the War (2004).[11] It narrates the movements of the title character on the day of her mother's burial, particularly her return to her safe retreat in the old elevator in the apartment building where she grew up.

The fourth book of Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet, The Story of the Lost Child, appeared on The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2015.[12]

Anonymity

Despite being recognized on an international scale,[13] she has kept her identity secret since the publication of her first novel in 1992.[10] Speculation as to her true identity has been rife, and numerous theories have been put forth, based on information Ferrante has given in interviews as well as analysis drawn from the content of her novels.

In 2003, Ferrante published La Frantumaglia (The Act of Falling Apart), a volume of her correspondence with editors, which shed some light on her identity.[14] The volume was published in Italian, and was not available in English until 2016. Nonetheless, in a 2013 article for The New Yorker, critic James Wood summarized what is generally accepted about Ferrante, based in part upon these collected letters:

...a number of her letters have been collected and published. From them, we learn that she grew up in Naples, and has lived for periods outside Italy. She has a classics degree; she has referred to being a mother. One could also infer from her fiction and from her interviews that she is not now married...In addition to writing, “I study, I translate, I teach.”[7]

In 2016, Marco Santagata, an Italian novelist who is also a trained philologist, a scholar of Petrarch and Dante, and a professor at the University of Pisa, published a paper detailing his theory of Ferrante's identity. Santagata's paper drew on philological analysis of Ferrante's writing, close study of the details about the cityscape of Pisa described in the novel, and the fact that the author reveals an expert knowledge of modern Italian politics. Based on this information, he concluded that the author had lived in Pisa but left by 1966, and therefore identified the probable author as Neapolitan professor Marcella Marmo, who studied in Pisa from 1964 to 1966. Both Marmo and the publisher deny Santagata's identification.[3]

In October 2016, investigative reporter Claudio Gatti published an article that relied on financial records related to real estate transactions and royalties payments, to draw the conclusion that Anita Raja, a Rome-based translator, is the real author behind the Ferrante pseudonym.[15] Gatti's article was criticized by many in the literary world as a violation of privacy.[8][16][17] British novelist Matt Haig tweeted, "Think the pursuit to discover the ‘real’ Elena Ferrante is a disgrace and also pointless. A writer’s truest self is the books they write."[16] Others, however, have suggested that knowledge of Ferrante's biography is indeed relevant.[18][19]

Adaptations

Two of Ferrante's novels have been turned into films. Troubling Love (L'amore molesto) became the feature film Nasty Love directed by Mario Martone, while The Days of Abandonment (I giorni dell'abbandono) became a film of the same title directed by Roberto Faenza. In her nonfiction book Fragments (La frantumaglia 2003), Ferrante speaks of her experiences as a writer.

A 32-part series The Neapolitan Novels is in the works and will be co-produced by the Italian producer Wildside for Fandango Productions, with screenwriting led by the writer Francesco Piccolo.[20]

Works

Awards and honours

References

  1. ↑ "End of author's anonymity". Toronto Star, November 1, 2016. Page E1. Jonathan Forani.
  2. 1 2 Lauren Groff (April 21, 2016). "TIME 100 Artists, Elena Ferrante". Time. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Donadio, Rahel (13 March 2016). "Who Is Elena Ferrante? An Educated Guess Causes a Stir". New York Times. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  4. ↑ Jenny Turner, "The Secret Sharer. Elena Ferrante's existential fiction", Harper's Magazine, October 2014.
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ Elena Ferrante: Journalist defends unmasking 'anonymous' author
  7. 1 2 Wood, James. "Women on the Verge: The Fiction of Elena Ferrante". Newyorker.com. Retrieved January 29, 2013.
  8. 1 2 The NYRB’s argument for doxing Elena Ferrante is not very good.
  9. ↑ For Literary World, Unmasking Elena Ferrante's Not A Scoop. It's A Disgrace
  10. 1 2 Ferri, Sandro; Ferri, Sandra (Spring 2015). "Interview: Elena Ferrante, Art of Fiction No. 228" (212). The Paris Review. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  11. ↑ King, Martha (2004). After the War: A Collection of Short Fiction by Postwar Italian Women. New York: Italica Press. ISBN 978-0-934977-55-5.
  12. ↑ "The 10 Best Books of 2015". The New York Times. December 3, 2015.
  13. ↑ "The Ideal Marriage, According to Novels". 15 January 2016.
  14. ↑ Elena Ferrante 'Unveiled' as Jewish German Translator
  15. ↑ Gatti, Claudio. "Elena Ferrante: An Answer?".
  16. 1 2 Backlash for Reporter Who 'Outs' ID of Anonymous Writer Behind Elena Ferrante
  17. ↑ Alexander, Lucy (5 October 2016). "Why is the exposure of Elena Ferrante causing such outrage?". BBC News Online. Retrieved 6 October 2016.
  18. ↑ http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/elenic-question/
  19. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/08/prissy-response-to-elena-ferrante-being-unmasked
  20. ↑ Moylan, Brian (February 9, 2016). "Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels set for TV adaptation". The Guardian.
  21. ↑ "'Anonymous' author on international Man Booker longlist". 10 March 2016 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  22. ↑ "Elena Ferrante could be the first-ever anonymous Booker winner - Times of India".
  23. ↑ "2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Results". Independent Publisher. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  24. ↑ Chad W. Post (April 14, 2014). "2014 Best Translated Book Awards: Fiction Finalists". Three Percent. Retrieved April 18, 2014.

Further reading

External links

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