Soon to be a NETFLIX Original Series.

A POWERFUL NEW NOVEL set in a divided Naples by ELENA FERRANTE, the New York Times best-selling author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter

“There’s no doubt [the publication of The Lying Life of Adults] will be the literary event of the year.”—Elle 

Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.

Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.

Named one of 2016’s most influential people by TIME Magazine and frequently touted as a future Nobel Prize-winner, Elena Ferrante has become one of the world’s most read and beloved writers. With this new novel about the transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, Ferrante proves once again that she deserves her many accolades., she proves once again that she deserves her many accolades. In The Lying Life of Adults, readers will discover another gripping, highly addictive, and totally unforgettable Neapolitan story.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2020
The New York Times Book Review・Vogue・Entertainment Weekly・ELLE Magazine・BuzzFeed・The Millions・The Seattle Times・USA Today・Town & Country・Thrillist・Publishers Weekly・Library Journal・Harper’s Bazaar・BookPage・Literary Hub・BBC Culture

INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR The Lying Life of Adults

“Modern, urgent, truthful.”—The Telegraph

“As you read, a vast panorama of characters slowly unfolds [. . .] a diverse and dynamic tableau of humanity. Once again, Elena Ferrante has not created a mere story but an entire world.”—Il libraio

“Ferrante shows again how she is unbeatable at pulling you inside the mind of a teenage girl, making you see how everything that looks irrational from the outside—the moods, the silences, the jealousy, fears, tears and resentments—are utterly logical and reasonable.”—The Times (UK)

“[The Lying Life of Adults] has the magnitude of great literature—from Balzac to Stendhal to the always beloved Proust [. . .] It is a necessary book, which shows women that today they have the capacity to be ‘truthful, fierce, compassionate,’ where Lila and Lenù—narrowly confined within the 20th century—could not, or could only to an extent.”—Il Manifesto

“[The Lying Life of Adults] is highly addictive.”—Elle (Italy)

“Elena Ferrante is an expert chronicler of adolescence and its many indignities, as well as its erratic, overwhelming passions.”—The Observer

“I picked up [The Lying Life of Adults] saying to myself that I would only read a few pages and then stop. Instead, I finished it all in one go, switching off my phone and withdrawing from the world. It is pure reading pleasure, brimming with Ferrante’s narrative intelligence, sincere characters, and signature themes.”—Nadia Terranova on Linkiesta

“Reading a novel by Elena Ferrante is like coming home, like returning to those happy childhood moments—perhaps imaginary—when we asked mom or dad to tell us the same bedtime story over and over again. From the very first sentences, The Lying Life of Adults enfolds and absorbs readers in the same way.”—Vanity Fair (Italy)

“In a story where truths are revealed and constantly overturned and characters inspire in equal measure love and hatred, Ferrante’s voice is at once reassuring, unsettling, mesmerizing.”—La Stampa

“Like in the ‘Neapolitan quartet,’ Ferrante keeps us glued to the page, in awe of her capacity to create characters that have a life-like, almost physical quality—so much so that they keep resurfacing in our mind with stunning vitality even after the book is over.”—Rai Cultura

“A great novel, extremely dense and complex, to be savored page by page. [Ferrante] brings us to vertigo-inducing heights before returning us, greatly enriched, to our daily lives.”—Critica Letteraria

“Elena Ferrante is uniquely able to combine complexity and readability.” —Nicola Lagioia in La Stampa

“Elena Ferrante brings readers back to a world—who knows if it is autobiographical or entirely fictional—that book-after-book we have come to think of as hers. Naples is there from the start, and, most importantly, so too are the indissoluble, complex, painful bond between children and their parents.”—La Repubblica

“Ferrante has managed a seemingly impossible feat for those who spent many sleepless nights captivated by the intricate lives of Lila and Lenù: she makes us forget all about those two girls . . . From the first lines of the new novel, there’s only Giovanna.”—Libero

“[In The Lying Life of Adults] the relationship between Giovanna and her paternal aunt Vittoria is powerful and intense.”—ANSA

“[Ferrante’s] prose, deployed with almost tender wisdom, is musical and linear, and plays with atmosphere and dialogue to shed light on her characters’ hearts, on their greatest hopes and burning disappointments.”—Il Messaggero

“In her signature way, Ferrante captivates the reader body and soul with a complex, layered, at times brutal novel, where once again the experience of womanhood is at the center of the story.”—Players Magazine

“Painful, powerful, dark, and brutal—mostly because of the characters who surround Giovanna, the protagonist. Because she, at least, has one great, abiding quality: she cannot lie to herself.”—L’Osservatore Romano

“Well worth the wait, [The Lying Life of Adults] is classic Ferrante: a gem for longtime fans and a perfect compendium of her signature themes and style for those reading her for the first time.”—Esquire (Italy), A Best Book of 2019

Elena Ferrante
Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), which was made into a film directed by Roberto Faenza, Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), adapted by Mario Martone, and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), soon to be a major motion picture directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Oscar Award-winner Olivia Colman. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini, Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey (Europa, 2016) and The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016), illustrated by Mara Cerri. The four volumes 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) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. Her most recent novel is The Lying Life of Adults (Europa, 2020).

• Jun 22 2020
  “An author at her peak.”
  — Asymptote Magazine
• May 22 2020
  “Ferrante highlights the bitter and sometimes brutal insecurity of being a teenager.”
  — AFAR Magazine
• May 5 2020
  “Ferrante makes Naples come alive.”
  — Newsweek
• Apr 11 2020
  “There's no doubt this will be the literary event of the year.”
  — ELLE Magazine
• Mar 25 2020
  “Prepare to be obsessed all over again.”
  — Town & Country