Elena Ferrante (All press)
- Dec 7 2022
A Best Book of 2022
— Air Mail - Mar 26 2022
“17 Short Story And Essay Collections For When You Want To Laugh, Cry, Think, Or Swoon”
— Buzzfeed - Mar 26 2022
“[Ferrante] performs the function of truth.”
— Scroll.in - Mar 25 2022
“Delightful.”
— Toronto Star - Mar 25 2022
“A fascinating peek.”
— The Paris Review - Mar 24 2022
“An elaborate...garment.”
— Gawker - Mar 18 2022
“Lucid, well-formed... captivating.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune - Mar 15 2022
“Formidable.”
— Booklist - Mar 15 2022
“Incandescent.”
— The New York Times - Mar 14 2022
“An unmistakable triumph.”
— Asymptote Journal - Mar 12 2022
“Engaging, slyly disruptive.”
— Air Mail - Mar 11 2022
“An ode to reading and writing.”
— Financial Times - Mar 11 2022
“Brilliant.”
— Library Journal (Starred Review) - Feb 28 2022
“...will keep the thrill going.”
— Los Angeles Times - Jan 18 2022
“Enticing.”
— Kirkus Reviews - Jan 4 2022
“An essential read.”
— The A.V. Club - Dec 31 2021
“Four pitch-perfect essays.”
— Oprah Daily - Dec 16 2021
“Razor-sharp.”
— TIME Magazine - Dec 9 2021
“Dazzling.” (Starred Review)
— Publishers Weekly - Sep 24 2021
“Might well be her most fascinating text.”
— Public Books - Sep 14 2021
“How we should hope to know Ferrante.”
— Cleveland Review of Books - Mar 10 2021
"Gritty.”
— The Sunday Times (ANZ) - Nov 28 2020
“...three hundred pages of quick and honest prose.”
— Scroll.In - Nov 27 2020
“Page-turner.”
— The Times UK - Nov 25 2020
“Raw, intense, delightful, refreshing.”
— Word by word - Nov 2 2020
“...holding the reader in thrall.”
— The Millstone - Oct 27 2020
“...a masterpiece.”
— Glam Adelaide - Oct 12 2020
“A must-read.”
— Condé Nast Traveller - Oct 12 2020
“Sublimely Ugly.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books - Oct 7 2020
“Glorious.”
— Good Housekeeping - Sep 23 2020
“Sex, lies and fraught family ties.”
— The Seattle Times - Sep 21 2020
“...blunt and poetic at the same time.”
— Socialist Worker - Sep 18 2020
“This is a novel as intense and ferocious as it is gentle and poignant.”
— The Book Reporter - Sep 12 2020
“There is an undeniable pleasure in experiencing the world through Ferrante’s lens.”
— The Winnipeg Free Press - Sep 11 2020
“Those who have loved the Neapolitan Quartet will find this novel a good counterpart.”
— Seeing the World Through Books - Sep 10 2020
“...a portrait of the artist as a young woman.”
— The National Book Review - Sep 9 2020
“...masterfully evokes adolescence.”
— The Irish Times - Sep 9 2020
“Ferrante renders teenage insecurities with skill and unflinching honesty.”
— The Daily Trojan - Sep 9 2020
“...an exploration of the effects of paternal and patriarchal legacies.”
— Public Books - Sep 9 2020
“[Ferrante] couldn’t be more alert to psychology’s delusions and society’s con games.”
— The Brooklyn Rail - Sep 6 2020
“...one of the most book-clubbed books of the year.”
— The Philadelphia Inquirer - Sep 4 2020
“...an emotional force field.”
— The Wall Street Journal - Sep 3 2020
“21 New Fall Books You Won't Want To Put Down.”
— BuzzFeed - Sep 3 2020
“Ferrante is a specialist in composure.”
— The New York Review of Books - Sep 3 2020
“A class-conscious coming-of-age tale.”
— 4 Columns - Sep 3 2020
“Truth, Beauty, and The Lying Life of Adults.”
— Ploughshares - Sep 3 2020
“A blistering bildungsroman.”
— The Washington Independent Review of Books - Sep 2 2020
“Irresistible."
— New Statesman - Sep 2 2020
“Sex is the most powerful force in this ‘Lying Life’.”
— NPR - Sep 1 2020
“Few authors are as elusive yet unflinchingly, unerringly evocative as Ferrante.”
— The Strait Times - Sep 1 2020
“Captivating.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books - Sep 1 2020
“Ferrante is an oracle among authors.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine - Sep 1 2020
“...striking in its vividness and depth.”
— The New York Times Book Review - Aug 31 2020
“Elena Ferrante makes a brilliant return.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald - Aug 31 2020
“Ferrante knows exactly how to tell a story.”
— Huffington Post - Aug 31 2020
“...a story we never tire of.”
— The Washington Post - Aug 31 2020
“Sharp and intimate.”
— The AV Club - Aug 30 2020
“How bracing to be back in Ferrante’s Neapolitan world.”
— The Observer - Aug 29 2020
“[With Ferrante], there is a style, but it’s wrought so subtly that you don’t realize it’s there.”
— The Independent Ireland - Aug 29 2020
“Each of us find in Ferrante’s fiction exactly what we’re seeking.”
— Slate - Aug 29 2020
“Ms. Ferrante’s unique style is as urgent as ever.”
— The Economist - Aug 28 2020
“Giovanna’s coming-of-age story is gripping, but what makes this novel indelible is Ferrante’s voice.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune - Aug 27 2020
“Fearless.”
— Evening Standard - Aug 27 2020
“One of this year’s most memorable heroines.”
— Boston Globe - Aug 27 2020
“Terrific.”
— Vox - Aug 25 2020
“Ferrante is still Ferrante.”
— Los Angeles Times - Aug 25 2020
“Suspenseful and propulsive.”
— The New York Times - Aug 24 2020
“She’s baaaaaaack.”
— PureWow - Aug 24 2020
“Ferrante has a gift, perhaps even a genius, for making great literature out of melodrama.”
— The New Yorker - Aug 24 2020
“A beautiful, honest and enthralling coming-of-age story.”
— Barnes & Noble Reads - Aug 23 2020
“Another work of genius.”
— The Arts Desk - Aug 22 2020
“Incendiary.”
— The Daily Mail - Aug 22 2020
“Elena Ferrante Fever Spikes Ahead of the Anonymous Novelist’s New Book”
— The Daily Beast - Aug 21 2020
“...a distillation of adolescence itself.”
— Vogue - Aug 20 2020
“Timeless.”
— TIME Magazine - Aug 19 2020
“Elena Ferrante is so good.”
— The Guardian - Aug 16 2020
“Ferrante asks the question that is at the heart of the adolescent experience.”
— Esquire - Aug 16 2020
“Another terrific story.”
— The Sunday Times - Aug 13 2020
“Brilliant.”
— Financial Times - Aug 12 2020
★ “A girl, a city, an inhospitable society: Ferrante’s formula works again!”
— Kirkus Reviews - Aug 12 2020
“A marvelously disconcerting novel of disillusionment.”
— The Atlantic - Aug 8 2020
“Elena Ferrante’s writing is subversively unforgiving.”
— Scroll.in - Aug 7 2020
★ “Fans of Ferrante’s first two Neapolitan novels will revel.”
— Booklist - Aug 5 2020
★ “Ferrante’s ability to draw in her readers remains unparalleled.”
— BookPage - 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 - Feb 1 2020
“There are spontaneous splashes of colour, highly concentrated phrases and much rich, aphoristic profundity.”
— Canberra Times - Feb 1 2020
“A full, absorbing portrait of an enduring author.”
— Library Journal - Dec 15 2019
Writing should in no case be postponed to an “after”
— Cannonball Read - Dec 13 2019
"Incidental Inventions is very much a masterclass in style"
— The Saturday Paper - Dec 12 2019
Truth and Lies in Elena Ferrante’s Incidental Inventions
— Ploughshares - Dec 12 2019
Review: Incidental Inventions by Elena Ferrante
— Columbia Journal - Dec 10 2019
‘Incidental Inventions’ Is a Steady, Beautiful Simmer
— The Harvard Crimson - Dec 6 2019
"Read Like the Wind": Incidental Inventions and 7 More books I Can't Get Out of My Head
— Vulture/New York Magazine - Nov 25 2019
Holiday Books to Keep You Reading All Winter
— Minneapolis Star Tribune - Nov 11 2019
FRAMING BY FRAGMENTATION: ELENA FERRANTE’S “INCIDENTAL INVENTIONS,” TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN BY ANN GOLDSTEIN
— Reading in Translation - Nov 12 2018
“Phenomenal”
— Literary Hub - Oct 1 2018
“... an amazing description of coming into womanhood.”
— BookRiot - Mar 5 2018
The New Vanguard
— The New York Times - Jul 29 2017
Elena Ferrante: The Mad Adventures of Serious Ladies
— Los Angeles Review of Books - Mar 30 2017
Elena Ferrante Series Coming to HBO
— New York Times - Feb 14 2017
Between the Lines
— Dissent Magazine - Feb 10 2017
Relationships That Really Matter: 15 Great Books on Female Friendship
— Signature Reads - Feb 9 2017
Likely Stories: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
— KWBU - Jan 27 2017
Editor’s Choice: Elena Ferrante’s ‘Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey’
— The Buffalo News - Jan 1 2017
“Whether she’s writing a letter that she’ll never send or answering questions for a ‘Paris Review’ interview, Ferrante is unsentimental and thrillingly blunt. There is no one like her.”
— Charleston Post and Courier - Dec 29 2016
“She can talk about politics, history, philosophy, sexuality, loneliness, and I willingly go with her, without ever questioning it. I don’t know any [other] writer who can do that for me.”
— San Francisco Chronicle - Dec 20 2016
Best Books of 2016
— Brazos Bookstore - Dec 16 2016
The 10 Most Important Books of 2016
— Los Angeles Times - Dec 15 2016
The Best Books We Read in 2016 That You Still Can Too
— Jezebel - Dec 7 2016
Best Books of 2016
— The National Post - Dec 6 2016
Best Books of 2016
— NPR - Dec 2 2016
"...[an] unnerving little gem."
— Sydney Morning Herald - Nov 26 2016
Best Books of 2016
— The Guardian - Nov 23 2016
Books of the Year 2016
— The Times Literary Supplement - Nov 23 2016
Books of the Year 2016
— The Times Literary Supplement - Nov 22 2016
“...[Ferrante's] intellect isn’t cold, her application of theory isn’t done objectively—the women that populate her novels are not merely flat, fictional objects to Ferrante, rather they’re real and visceral (‘the word is always flesh’).”
— Jezebel - Nov 18 2016
“Even without having read the entirety of Ferrante’s oeuvre, a reader will thrill to learn in more depth of certain themes that haunt her.”
— Book Reporter - Nov 16 2016
“[FRANTUMAGLIA] is an intimate history of her progress between one book and the next; an invitation to sit at her desk and to see as she sees the work she does with words.”
— The Times Literary Supplement - Nov 11 2016
“...as sensitive, intimate, intelligent and beautiful as any of her novels.”
— The Arts Desk - Nov 11 2016
“...ferociously meticulous, exacting, and direct...exhibit[s] an incredible level of care and connection to the subtleties of her text.”
— The Lifted Brow - Nov 10 2016
“...I must confess that the words of Ferrante that have captivated me the most are included in Frantumaglia—something she wrote about writing.”
— Asymptote - Nov 5 2016
“Never less than compelling...dramatically unveil[s] the process of Ferrante’s creative work.”
— The Australian - Nov 2 2016
“It is an addictive, powerful, and disquieting miscellany of piercing intelligence, restless questioning, compulsive rumination, equable uncertainty, courteous self-possession, quiet generosity.”
— The National - Nov 2 2016
The Essential Ferrante
— The Nation - Nov 1 2016
In Frantumaglia, Elena Ferrante exquisitely chronicles her own self-erasure
— The Week - Oct 31 2016
“It’s a glimpse into a life not unlike the one we might have imagined for her, consistent with the world of her novels, and deeply satisfying to those readers who would know her.”
— New Republic - Oct 31 2016
“I’ve always preferred Ferrante’s short novels, especially ‘The Days of Abandonment’ and ‘The Lost Daughter,’...for the companionability of those cleareyed, precise, unsentimental narrators...You can hear something of their voice in Ferrante’s thoughtful simplicity.”
— The New York Times Book Review - Oct 29 2016
"Mara Cerri’s illustrations are weird and wonderful in this peculiar tale of loss and rediscovery..."
— Times of London - Oct 29 2016
Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey by Elena Ferrante review – astute, revelatory ruminations
— The Guardian - Oct 27 2016
Ten Books to Read in November
— BBC - Culture - Oct 13 2016
"Celina’s tale is powerfully told and complex."
— Washington Post - Oct 12 2016
"...a small delight"
— The New York Times - Oct 6 2016
Elena Ferrante’s upcoming book reveals how much she wanted to remain unknown
— Los Angeles Times - May 26 2016
The Violent World of Elena Ferrante
— New York Review of Books - Dec 10 2015
"Top 10 Books" of 2015
— People Magazine - Dec 10 2015
The Best Books of 2015 for Gifting...and Hoarding
— Vanity Fair - Dec 3 2015
Katy Waldman’s 10 Favorite Books of 2015
— Slate - Dec 3 2015
A Year in Reading: Katrina Dodson
— The Millions - Dec 3 2015
The best fiction of 2015
— The Guardian - Dec 3 2015
Shelf life - Best books of the year
— The Economist - Dec 3 2015
The 10 Best Books of 2015
— The New York Times - Dec 2 2015
A Year in Reading: Claire Messud
— The Millions - Dec 2 2015
A Year in Reading: Celeste Ng
— The Millions - Dec 2 2015
The 24 Best Fiction Books Of 2015
— Buzzfeed - Dec 2 2015
Lady Things: Holiday Gift Guide
— The Willamette Week - Nov 30 2015
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante tr. Ann Goldstein
— Word by Word - Nov 18 2015
Notable fiction books of 2015
— The Washington Post - Nov 18 2015
Sarah Treem, producer of "The Affair", tells the New York Times "I’ve been particularly influenced this year by the Elena Ferrante novels"
— New York Times - Oct 21 2015
Elena Ferrante’s conclusion to Neapolitan Novels is narrative masterpiece
— Wichita Eagle - Sep 28 2015
BookSeller: "“Ferrante’s success has changed the perception of Europa Editions. My job now is to really push the whole list so that people who come to us by Ferrante stay with us." - Sep 28 2015
The Phraser. “It’s raw and brilliant, with a light that shines unblinking on its characters.” - Sep 28 2015
New Republic: "Ferrante’s attention to the female body has been one of the great pleasures of her Neopolitan series..." - Sep 22 2015
The Harvard Crimson: “When the novel ends, it abruptly and dazzlingly reveals exactly how much change has accumulated over each successive round, leaving its readers to ask the same question as its narrator: How could we have possibly gone so far?” - Sep 21 2015
Scroll.in: "For Ferrante, the ability to exercise our own choices is of paramount importance and one that she takes very seriously." - Sep 21 2015
The New Yorker: "The novel examines friendship, motherhood, politics, class conflict, and the project of writing..." - Sep 20 2015
Mirabile Dictu: "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." - Sep 20 2015
Philadelphia Inquirer: “It takes a transcendent imagination to write a life that reads as if it actually happened, in our own world, and not too long ago. We're lucky to have one such imagination working now, that of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante.” - Sep 20 2015
The Guardian: “It is the first work worthy of the Nobel prize to have come out of Italy for many decades.” - Sep 20 2015
Quartz: "“Ferrante’s books are bestsellers, sure, but they’re no 50 Shades of Grey. They are those unicorn commercial successes with profound literary merit.” - Sep 19 2015
The Boston Globe: "Ferrante has written a book that feels as rich and layered as life itself." - Sep 19 2015
Ann Goldstein discusses the Neapolitan novels with Sarah Kanowski on Australian radio. - Sep 19 2015
The Idle Woman: "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." - Sep 19 2015
Samsinclair Blog: "The book series is a eulogy to ordinary peoples` lives, their differing aspirations and their desires to follow their instincts…even when these are questionable." - Sep 17 2015
Aleksandar Hemon says “Most recently I’ve been enjoying Elena Ferrante, and not enjoying Knausgaard, but I spend a lot of time reading books in translation.” - Sep 17 2015
Evening Standard: “The dark heart of friendship has rarely been anatomised in more pitiless detail." - Sep 17 2015
James Franco instagrammed his recent Ferrante fever affliction. Teenage girls the world over rush out to buy MY BRILLIANT FRIEND.
— Instagram - Sep 16 2015
CBC Books: Guy Maddin refers to Ferrante as “the most exciting author he’s encountered in decades”. - Sep 16 2015
The Indianapolis Public Library recommends the Neapolitan novels as a holiday gift! - Sep 16 2015
The Georgia Straight: "As in the rest of the series, Ferrante’s writing is spare, fierce, and meticulously detailed; as John Waters once quipped on Vine, she could be “the best angry woman writer ever”." - Sep 15 2015
European Literature Network: “Ferrante’s astute political analysis of Italy’s many political and economic earthquakes from the 1950s to the present gives her novels a weight and significance beyond fiction.” - Sep 15 2015
The Lit Hub: Five Books Making the News This Week - Sep 15 2015
Naples Daily News: “20 fiction and nonfiction titles to curl up with this fall” - Sep 15 2015
The San Jose Mercury News reports that MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is # 3 on Northern California Bestsellers list.
— The San Jose Mercury News - Sep 15 2015
The San Jose Mercury News reports that LOST CHILD is #2 on Northern California Bestsellers list. - Sep 15 2015
The Atlantic: "Ferrante’s voice is very much her own, but its force is communal. Perhaps her quartet should be seen as one of the first great works of post-authorial literature.” - Sep 14 2015
ReadingGroupGuides.com’s September, “What’s Your Book Group Reading This Month?”: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is the prize
— ReadingGroupGuides.com - Sep 14 2015
The Huffington Post: “Ferrante's Naples Quartet is anything but theater. It is the first genuine literary classic of the 21st century.” - Sep 14 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is #21 on the Nielsen list.
— Nielsen - Sep 14 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD is #5 on the Nielsen list. - Sep 13 2015
Bookish Ramblings: “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.” - Sep 13 2015
LOST CHILD is #7 on the Indie Bestseller List: Trade Paperback Nonfiction for the week ending September 13, 2015. - Sep 13 2015
In These Times: “I don’t think I’ve read a more intelligent and imaginative work about contemporary women’s lives, nor one that articulates so bravely the difficulties inherent in such an enterprise.” - Sep 12 2015
The Boston Globe: “Fall Fiction and Nonfiction Suggestions” - Sep 12 2015
The Guardian: “A bit of welcome relief from the testosterone-fuelled big beastery came in the form of The Story of the Lost Child, the final instalment of Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular quartet of Neapolitan novels.” - Sep 12 2015
The Irish Times: “Still, it is worth battling through all four volumes of this strenuous saga to encounter Lila, and to observe a character evolving and enduring within a world she has chosen.” - Sep 12 2015
The Independent (UK): “The emotional devastation is so intimately rendered that at times, as I read, I couldn’t breathe.” - Sep 12 2015
The Australian: "...the Italian writer is scathing about persistent speculation that she is in fact a well-known male writer (or, given the magnitude of her success, a cabal of well-known male writers)." - Sep 11 2015
Mirabile Dictu: " A shock of recognition rocked me when I read page 18. The heroine, Elena, who is angry and jealous of her best friend, Lila, destroys a box of eight notebooks Lila entrusted her with so her husband would not find them." - Sep 11 2015
Duluth News Tribune: SOTLC no.3 on the Heartland Indie Best-seller list - Sep 11 2015
Bustle: "There are tons of lessons women can learn from Ferrante's pages — and here are just seven of 'em:" - Sep 11 2015
NY Times: “Ferrante deserves credit for setting her own terms and insisting that the focus remain on her work. Jonathan Franzen should be so lucky.” - Sep 10 2015
Bustle: 6 Lessons On Female Friendship That I Learned As A Man, Straight From Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels - Sep 10 2015
NPR: Maureen Corrigan calls THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD "spectacular" and reminds us that, in order to experience the "perfect devastation" of this finale, it's best to start from the very beginning. - Sep 10 2015
Hollywood Reporter's Fall Book Preview: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 10 2015
The Artery: “Rather than mourning the loss of Ferrante’s exquisite Neapolitan novels, I marvel at achievement in bringing them to life. And the coda at the end of the epic tale of Lila and Elena has stayed with me for days.” - Sep 10 2015
New Statesman: Margaret Drabble calls LOST CHILD “a triumphant, satisfying, baffling and unsettling conclusion." - Sep 9 2015
Brooklyn Magazine calls LOST CHILD “The Best Book to Weep to on the Subway.” - Sep 9 2015
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME is #29 on the ABA Indie Bookstore Bestseller List - Sep 9 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is #6 on the ABA Indie Bookstore Bestseller List
— ABA Indie Bookstore Bestseller List - Sep 9 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD is #3 on the ABA Indie Bookstore Bestseller List - Sep 9 2015
The Times Literary Supplement: " romantic and family saga, a Bildungsroman, a portrait of a society, the series is also not quite any of these things." - Sep 9 2015
Vegas Seven: On the Bookshelf - Sep 9 2015
Macleans: "Women are made into universal heroes, without an ounce of pity, shame or excuse." - Sep 8 2015
Book Reporter: "The complete series, which runs now to well over 1,500 pages, is reminiscent of the vast novel of the 19th century..." - Sep 7 2015
Asymptote: "Working Title: The Lost Daughter” - Sep 7 2015
The Guardian: Podcast - Sep 7 2015
The Guardian: "the only book ever to make me shout out loud at a revelation in the story." - Sep 6 2015
The Conversation (Australia): “Successfully Absent: Elena Ferrante’s Italian Books” - Sep 6 2015
Daily Express: “A Foreign Affair: Best new world fiction translations.” - Sep 5 2015
Winnipeg Free Press (Canada): “New in Paper” - Sep 5 2015
The Star: “To read Ferrante is to be immersed in an entire world, subject to its violence and passions, its hopes and frustrations; readers will likely find it difficult to close The Story of the Lost Child for the last time, to consign that world to memo - Sep 5 2015
Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Of special note is Ferrante’s detailed and dramatic descriptions of the struggle girls must make to advance in school." - Sep 4 2015
WA Today (Australia): "Ferrante's novels are immersive, each and all together a world, one sliding into the next as characters and events mirror one another." - Sep 4 2015
The News: Melanie Mitchell recommends THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 4 2015
Entertainment Weekly: “In her inimitable style (expertly rendered, as always, by translator Ann Goldstein), Ferrante examines feminine identity within and without the context of marriage, motherhood, and vocation.” - Sep 3 2015
KCRW: Press Play - Sep 3 2015
Wall Street Journal: "15 Books to Read This Fall" - Sep 3 2015
Chicago Tribune: "...THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD is the fourth and final one of her magnificent Neapolitan quartet, a sequence which now seems to me, at least within all that I've read, to be the greatest achievement in fiction of the post-war era." - Sep 3 2015
Kirsty Lang discusses Elena Ferrante and the Neopolitan series in BBC Radio’s feature “Front Row.” - Sep 3 2015
The New York Times: “Ms. Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet is utterly distinctive, immersing us not just in a time and place, but deep within the psychological consciousness of its narrator.” - Sep 3 2015
Los Angeles Times: “Like Anna Karenina, Lila and Elena are volatile, full of desire and rage. They too break domestic conventions, but it thrills me that instead of killing them off, Ferrante allows them, in all their chaos and pain, to thrive.” - Sep 3 2015
New York Times: What to do this weekend? - Sep 3 2015
The Guardian: "A portrait of the dynamic of a friendship has mutated into a weightier, more uncanny exploration of the antipathy of love, of our compulsion to create one another, over and over again." - Sep 3 2015
The Pool: "The truth is that even the publishing industry and the media are convinced of this commonplace; both tend to shut women who write away in a literary gynaeceum." - Sep 3 2015
Aaron Brady on The Lit Hub: "Her work is reminiscent of a Neapolitan theatrical tradition called sceneggiata, a kind of over-the-top musical melodrama about honour, betrayal and crime…" - Sep 3 2015
OpenDemocracy.net: “Her subtle and sensuous depiction of Lenu’s and Lila’s world leads to a totally immersive reading experience – you feel the street dust on your face, the sand between your toes, you can smell the stench of sausage meat.” - Sep 3 2015
The National: “Ferrante’s masterworks take us close enough to see not just the colour, but the filth and mud as well.” - Sep 3 2015
Bustle: "3 Big Reasons The Neapolitan Novels Are The Greatest Modern Series" - Sep 3 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD tops the list of “Editors’ Choice” Books in the September 6 issue of the New York Times Book Review. - Sep 2 2015
Vogue.com: “Has any fiction in the past ten years had a bigger impact?” - Sep 2 2015
Tiny Camels: "The books are full of blood – menstrual as well as that spilled through violence – and the women are as awful to each other as the men are to them..." - Sep 2 2015
Omnivoracious: The Amazon Review: "The Story of the Lost Child is on many best books of fall lists, and has received glowing reviews everywhere already." - Sep 2 2015
The New Yorker: " This was a party, in the tradition established by the Harry Potter series, for books whose fan bases have become ravenous." - Sep 2 2015
The Atlantic: “Ferrante challenges our ideas about the act of writing itself, so that we are left wondering if a writer’s work always and inevitably contains traces of the words and stories of others that came before it.” - Sep 2 2015
Los Angeles Review of Books: “Ferrante, the Classics scholar, has written a Greek tragedy with Lila as its heroine.” - Sep 2 2015
New York Post: "The prose is spare, emotionally resonant — and completely addictive.” - Sep 2 2015
CityLab: "The city itself is a character in all her novels, including the popular four-book series that begins with My Brilliant Friend, about best friends growing up in the 1950s, and ends with The Story of the Lost Child, released in English this week." - Sep 2 2015
The Guardian: "Ferrante added that when a woman’s writing falls outside the categories that have been assigned to women, particularly when there is no author photo of a woman provided, then the immediate jump to the writer’s identity being male is made." - Sep 2 2015
Bustle’s 13 of Fall’s Best Books to Read All Season: “It’s a satisfying conclusion to Ferrante’s modern masterpiece.” - Sep 2 2015
Women’s Voices for Change’s “Wednesday five”: #1 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 2 2015
Bustle: 12 Of The Most Feminist Moments In Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels - Sep 2 2015
Bustle: "The fourth and final installment wraps up the tale of friendship, class struggle, political upheaval and the search for identity that has hooked so many readers over the four years since the first volume was published in Italy." - Sep 1 2015
Open Letters Monthly: "Reading Ferrante is like holding one of those hearts, without ever understanding what brought it to life in the first place." - Sep 1 2015
Kirkus: 21 Must-Read Fall Books" - Sep 1 2015
The Barnes and Noble Review: “It’s the bristling, uncompromising, messy humanity of Ferrante’s characters that make them so vivid.” - Sep 1 2015
Flavorwire: "The symbolic open-endedness of The Story of The Lost Child makes the series into something of a circle, a cycle, rather than a linear tale. It’s a stunning feat to contemplate, while also being riveting to read.” - Sep 1 2015
The Huffington Post: A Love Letter To Elena Ferrante, Whoever She May Be: "Anonymity is a powerful thing in the age of the personal brand." - Sep 1 2015
The Stylist's Best New Books of September: “If you only read four books this year, then make it these.” - Sep 1 2015
The New Yorker: “It is the exploration of the women’s mental underworld that makes the book so singular an achievement in feminist literature; indeed, in all literature.” - Sep 1 2015
Christopher Livesay: " The neighborhood she describes in vivid detail is poor and unglamorous — and it may or may not be based on the neighborhood where she herself grew up." - Sep 1 2015
Bust: "5 Reasons To Love Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels With All Your Feminist Heart" - Sep 1 2015
Vol.1 Brooklyn’s September 2015 Books Preview: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 1 2015
Bustle 17 Of September 2015's Best Books: #1 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 1 2015
Heavy Feather Review: “Unlike most books of a breathtaking nature, these are beautifully wrought, with layered and intricate characters acting in extreme, but believable ways.” - Sep 1 2015
Vox: "Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels are astonishing modern classics" - Sep 1 2015
Falvorwire's 33 Must-Read Books for Fall 2015: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 1 2015
Lit Hub's Five Books Making News This Week: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Sep 1 2015
Fusion: "But that’s exactly how this series should end: not with the sudden realization of who we can be, but with the awful truth of who we are." - Sep 1 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD featured on Amazon's Best Books of the Month! - Aug 31 2015
Kirkus: “A Writer Who Makes Her Voice Heard Around the World: Elena Ferrante’s brilliant, angry, honest series of novels” - Aug 31 2015
NY Journal of Books: “Insightful examination and mini history of Naples, modern Italian history and politics, feminism, and class issues.” - Aug 31 2015
Slate: "For my mom and me—who, like all mothers and daughters, sometimes have a difficult relationship—the novels have given us a way to stay in closer touch and a subject to return to and discuss." - Aug 31 2015
Slate: "Part of the rich flavor of these books comes from Ferrante’s skillful blending of the familiar motifs of commercial fiction with an elevated style and a refusal to stoop to sentimental reassurances and easily likable characters." - Aug 31 2015
Newsday: “But with work this unusual and brilliant, there is no way to stop us from focusing on so prodigiously gifted a storyteller.” - Aug 31 2015
TIME: “But while the relationship between protagonists Elena and Lila is the story’s heart, there’s another character exerting a strong influence on their lives: the city of Naples, which is portrayed in gritty detail throughout the novels.”
— TIME - Aug 31 2015
Tony's Reading List: "As a whole the Neapolitan Novels are a wonderful achievement, and the fourth book provides a fitting end to a enthralling series." - Aug 30 2015
Portland Press Herald's Fall Arts Preview: Good Reads to Get Cozy with This Fall: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 29 2015
The Economist: "Yet it is Ms Ferrante’s ability to serve up scorching emotional truth that gives the books their raw power." - Aug 28 2015
The Financial TImes: "To imbue fiction with the undiluted energy of life — to make of it not just words upon a page but a visceral force — is the greatest artistic achievement, worth more than any pretty sentences..." - Aug 28 2015
PW Pick's Books of the Week: "This stunning conclusion further solidifies the Neapolitan novels as Ferrante's masterpiece and guarantees that this reclusive author will remain far from obscure for years to come." - Aug 28 2015
Michele Zackeim of SVA's Summer Reading Friday Picks: "They are eloquent and painfully honest books, following two friends from a poor Naples neighborhood." - Aug 28 2015
Slate: Brow Beat Slate's Culture Blog: “Dressing a Refined Story With a Touch of Vulgarity”: An Interview With Elena Ferrante’s Art Director - Aug 28 2015
New Republic: “These are Elena Ferrante's women trapped in a Lars von Trier film.”
— The New Republic - Aug 28 2015
Globe and Mail: “These ferocious and necessary novels offer so many varieties of pleasure: They are political, intellectual and emotionally gripping at the same time. They draw a portrait of Western society in blood.” - Aug 28 2015
Vanity Fair: “This is Ferrante at the height of her brilliance.” - Aug 27 2015
BBC Ten Books to Read in September: "This concluding volume, translated into English by Ann Goldstein, proves, once again, as Ferrante puts it: “Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps.”" - Aug 27 2015
SFGate: “Learning from the multivolume sagaists who have preceded her, she shows much skill in writing those enormous histories into this narrative about two grown women choosing the paths their adult lives should take.” - Aug 27 2015
Off the Shelf’s 11 Binge-Worthy Literary Series: THE NEAPOLITAN NOVELS
— Off the Shelf - Aug 27 2015
The Independent (UK): “[...] it is in the passages when Ferrante explores the liminal states of Lila’s consciousness that the writing transcends itself.” - Aug 27 2015
London Review Bookshop: “A Brief Guide to Elena Ferrante with Joanna Walsh” Vlog - Aug 27 2015
Vulture's 46 Books to Read this Fall: #2 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 26 2015
The Washington Post: "with her new novel, “The Story of the Lost Child,” Ferrante has written what I’d call a “city book,” a knowing and complex tale that encompasses an entire metropolis." - Aug 26 2015
The New York Times: " With this shift into a psychological paradigm, Ferrante implies much about the stubbornly cyclical nature of female evolution." - Aug 25 2015
“Ferrante had brought the story, the lives she was excavating, to a conclusion that, while it does not answer all the questions, or even many of them, feels the way life feels.”
— Foyles - Aug 24 2015
Guy Somerset of the New Zealand Festival: "While the Neapolitan Novels are about women – Elena and Lila – they are also novels about writing about women." - Aug 24 2015
The Independent: "As Ferrante suggests, the book should surely be enough, though that is sadly not the reality for many pressured to deliver a performance after they have delivered their novel." - Aug 24 2015
Amazon’s Fall Books Preview: Editors Fall Favorites: #5 THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 23 2015
Flavorwire’s 22 Essential Women Writers to Read in Translation: Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels
— Flavorwire - Aug 22 2015
The Telegraph: "The Story of the Lost Child does not offer a comfortable end to the series, but it confirms Ferrante – once again – as one of contemporary fiction’s most compelling voices.” - Aug 21 2015
Electric Lit: Previously on the Neapolitan Novels: Your Study Guide to Elena Ferrante - Aug 21 2015
Bustle: Elena Ferrante’s ‘The Story Of The Lost Child’ Is Coming, So Here’s What You Need To Remember Before You Start The Fourth Book - Aug 20 2015
Bustle: What Are Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels About? Hint: It's Not Ice Cream
— Bustle - Aug 20 2015
Brazos Bookstore: THE LOST DAUGHTER is picked for the Brazos Bookclub. - Aug 19 2015
CNN: Amazon's 20 favorite fall book picks - Aug 19 2015
Bustle: #FerranteFever Is Sweeping Social Media! Here's How To Enter The 'Story Of The Lost Child' Contest - Aug 14 2015
“And while the neighborhood can be eccentrically charming, it's also claustrophobic and dangerous.”
— Boswell and Books - Aug 14 2015
Bustle: "When is Elena Ferrante’s New Book Coming Out?" - Aug 14 2015
Shelf Awareness: "The concluding novel of the Neapolitan quartet perfectly completes the saga of two women's 66-year friendship in a rough neighborhood of Naples." - Aug 13 2015
Evening Standard Magazine’s list “#longreads: the supersized books of summer 2015.” - Aug 13 2015
Bustle's 10 Great Books To Read Now Based On Your Favorite Titles As A Kid (That, OK, You Still Love Now, Too): MY BRILLIANT FRIEND - Aug 11 2015
Bustle: "More than that, however, the letter is an affirmation to those of us torn between publishing and our privacy, showing us that having our careers doesn't necessitate the end of our lives as private citizens." - Aug 11 2015
Entertainment Weekly's 30 blockbuster novels to look out for this fall: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 11 2015
John Waters, Billy Connolly, Marina Endicott on their Summer Reads: John Waters picks THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 10 2015
Electric Lit: "... it’s refreshing to see a writer committed to dodging the bandwagon at every turn." - Aug 7 2015
Material Witness: “It's difficult for me to exaggerate how moving, how beautiful and how thought-provoking these novels are, how piercing Ferrante's insight is. - Aug 6 2015
Philippa Gregory in The Daily Mail: Currently reading THE STORY OF A NEW NAME - Aug 3 2015
Scout Magazine: "Ferrante’s writing is rich, honest and addictive." - Aug 1 2015
Fader's 15 Books You Should Read Before the End of Summer: “As love and sex infiltrate Elena and Lila's shared universe, their childhood bond splinters, frays, and warps, all against the backdrop of Naples' steamy summers.” - Aug 1 2015
Reading Groups for Everyone Staff Picks: THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Aug 1 2015
The Sunday TImes: "They’ve got love, life, politics, friendship, a window into an unknown world and fantastic writing – they are the best thing I’ve read in years.” - Aug 1 2015
How We Spend Our Days: “Not only do they provide an intimately written description of a female friendship, clear as life, but together they form a female Künstlerroman, a woman’s story of coming of age as an artist in a male-dominated world..." - Aug 1 2015
London Review of Books Bookshop's Author of the Month: Elena Ferrante - Jul 31 2015
Post45: The Story of a New Name: Katherine, July 31: "So far, we've been talking about the Neapolitan novels almost entirely as the story of a friendship...But it's also, significantly, the story of all of these lives, and of the city in which they live." - Jul 30 2015
Post45: The Story of A New Name: Merve, July 30: "If My Brilliant Friend gave us a community of two, Lila and Lenù, brought together by a shared commitment to literary education, in The Story of a New Name that community has broadened." - Jul 30 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is #3 on the London Review of Books list of weekly bestsellers. - Jul 30 2015
THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD was included in Publishers Weekly list of “The Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2015.” - Jul 30 2015
Buzzfeed's “35 Books You Should Read this Summer": THE STORY OF THE LOST CHILD - Jul 30 2015
MBF is at #1 in the Bookseller’s Small Publishers Top 20 chart - 7/27/15 - Jul 27 2015
MBF is also #5 on the Original Fiction Top 20 and at #9 on the Heatseekers Top 20. 7/27/15 - Jul 27 2015
Ferrante and the Neapolitan novels featured as recommended books in translation in the article, “Books: Get lost in translation on exotic holidays in the sun” in The Independent. - Jul 27 2015
THE LOST DAUGHTER recommended by Alice Sebold on the new book app Alexi. - Jul 25 2015
The Sunday Morning Herald: "It is possible that the few flaws, the moments of excessive melodrama or one instance of improbable sentimentality that I have discovered in these three short novels are no more than chimeras glimpsed by a male sensibility." - Jul 24 2015
Savidge Reads: "What I found really interesting was the aspects of the competition verses the companionship of the girls ... and how each girl tries to keep both dynamics going yet also trying to figure out their futures..." - Jul 20 2015
Warby Parker’s blog: "In My Brilliant Friend, the Neapolitan novelist writes about violence, poverty and friendship in 1950s Naples in language that crackles with bluntness, terror, and beauty." - Jul 20 2015
Post45 Merve: "The frame narrative offers us both an ingenious recap of My Brilliant Friend and a tantalizing reveal: there is a fictional ur-text that precedes the novel we hold in our hands." - Jul 17 2015
Post45 Jill: "All this brings me back to Ferrante's Neopolitan novel cycle, which is, more than anything else, I think, about the intersection of intimacy and violence." - Jul 17 2015
Material Witness: THE STORY OF A NEW NAME included in the list of “Summer Reading List- Books for the Beach” - Jul 15 2015
Daunt Books: “Ferrante reads like a brilliant American HBO tv series - multi layered, enticing, sexy, threatening, exciting - you don't have to wait for the next week's episode, it's there right in front of you on paper.” - Jul 13 2015
Raging Biblioholism: "The most incredible thing about Ferrante’s writing is that it operates on two levels; that is, she is writing the story of a character who is writing a story." - Jul 12 2015
Bookish Ramblings: "Ferrante’s writing style, which is candid, intimate and seems almost effortless." - Jul 11 2015
Post45 Sarah: "Ferrante's particular reckoning warps them into something much odder and darker." - Jul 11 2015
The Guardian's Best Holiday Reads: - Jul 9 2015
The Literary Hub: “Ferrante’s writing is as fierce as it is elegant, as razor sharp as it is oddly soothing. This is a book you will read in an afternoon but will stay with you for a lifetime.” - Jul 8 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND moves up to no.7 on this week’s NAIBA Indie Bestseller List. - Jul 7 2015
The Washington Post: "These stories save us from the tired spectacle of women fighting over some man or fighting to redeem him." - Jul 6 2015
Post45 Merve: "After all, what is friendship if not the ability to intuit each another's shifting boundaries—to give words to those sensations that we, as individuals, are not yet able to name?" - Jul 6 2015
Asymptote: "It’s a juicy novel, it’s a novel to make you stay up too late, it’s a complex novel, and it isn’t easy to read—though it certainly is readable." - Jul 6 2015
The Millions: Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview - Jul 5 2015
The Sunday Times: Best reads on the beach: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND - Jul 4 2015
A Little Blog of Books: "...the book focuses on the small, everyday events of Elena and Lila’s lives to tell a much more expansive story about their friendship and rivalry." - Jul 1 2015
Post45 Katherine: "Despite the pain of competition and unknowability that you three have so cleverly pointed out, these acts of solidarity allow us to feel that this is on balance a "good" relationship, based on mutual regard and shared hopes." - Jun 30 2015
L.A. Public Library: "Through her characters and their situations, Ferrante clearly and evocatively presents the choices, problems and possibilities for young girls and women." - Jun 30 2015
Tweed Magazine: "The dry delivery, the banal details of the date and location of the drowning, all combine to reflect the state of shock and calm one experiences upon the first wave of trauma." - Jun 30 2015
Tweed Magazine: "This idea of a life stolen by the demands of motherhood often haunts the minds of Ferrante’s characters." - Jun 30 2015
Tweed Magazine: “Rage is a word frequently used to describe Ferranate’s voice, but a more appropriate term is power. Her writing is powerful. She’s powerful.” - Jun 30 2015
Blackwell Bookstore’s Current Top Ten Chart: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND - Jun 29 2015
The Daily Mail: "Forensically observed, truthful, rich and rewarding, this is an unforgettable reading experience. Brava also to Ann Goldstein, the translator.” - Jun 29 2015
Reading Room’s 6 Great Italian Authors to Discover: "My Brilliant Friend is a ravishing, wonderfully written novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime." - Jun 29 2015
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME is number 7 on the list of top-selling books at Battenkill Books, Cambridge during the week of June 28th - Jun 29 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is number 6 on the list of top-selling books at Battenkill Books, Cambridge during the week of June 28th - Jun 29 2015
Jennifer Morrison recommends: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante - Jun 26 2015
My Brilliant Friend: Sarah, June 26: "I wonder if Ferrante's point is to highlight the fact that all friendships—especially real, deep, true ones—are, on some level, built on fantastic projections." - Jun 25 2015
My Brilliant Friend: Merve, June 25: "My Brilliant Friend is the portrait of the artist as not one, but two young women; a portrait limned by the convergences of language and the divergences of class." - Jun 23 2015
Post45: My Brilliant Friend: Katherine, June 23: "It was that old feeling, the excitement of having a mind to which another mind is speaking from the page." - Jun 23 2015
Vol 1 Brooklyn: My Father’s Suicide and “The Days of Abandonment” - Jun 23 2015
The Point Mag: “Ferrante has created 2 of the most dynamic & intelligent female protagonists of our (or maybe any) time.” - Jun 23 2015
The Guardian: "It's a Naples whodunnit: novelist hotly tipped to win Italy’s Strega prize has kept her identity a secret for more than 20 years to preserve her ‘flesh and blood’" - Jun 23 2015
Western Morning News: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is third on the “Bookseller’s Favorites: The Top 10 Books at Liskeard’s The Book Shop” - Jun 23 2015
Sybil Steinberg of Publishers Weekly “June 2015” list: The Neapolitan Novels - Jun 22 2015
My Brilliant Friend: Jill, June 22: "”In this novel, female friendship takes center stage, as a social relation equally mysterious, difficult, and precarious as the bonds we most often, most exclusively, attribute to romantic love.” - Jun 22 2015
The Guardian: "Ferrante has captured the intensity of childhood friendships – their all-consuming nature, the passions and the near romantic obsession – brilliantly." - Jun 22 2015
Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore’s Summer Reads 2015 Jason's Picks: MY BRILLIANT FRIEND - Jun 19 2015
25 Great Literary Series to Replace Your TV Habit This Summer: The Neapolitan Novela - Jun 18 2015
GoodbyeToAllThis: "Ferrante’s writing is crisp and precise, evoking the intensity of childhood and adolescence but without ever being subsumed by them. " - Jun 18 2015
Outside the Neighborhood: Reading Italy Through Elena Ferrante: "This is a story of self-realization alongside the self-realization of a nation." - Jun 16 2015
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME selected by the International Women’s Group Book Club title for the month of 6/15. - Jun 16 2015
The Times Literary Supplement: "Elena Ferrante – whose agile prose has found her not a few (well-deserved) admirers in our recent Summer Books feature – Italian literature has been having a rather tough time of it in recent years..." - Jun 12 2015
The Independent’s Recommended Summer Reading: "the writing is fearless, immersive, recounts frankly all human experience, emphatically that which seems unsayable." - Jun 10 2015
HuffPost Arts & Culture: 30 Books You Need to Read Before You Turn 30: "this novel not only brings to life the pleasures and difficulties of intimacy, but also the stubborn nature of fate." - Jun 8 2015
Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend — Discovering the sociability, the congeniality of NAPLES - Jun 8 2015
The Paris Review: An Interview with Elena Ferrante: "Whenever a part of you emerges that’s not consistent with some feminine ideal, it makes everyone nervous, and you’re supposed to get rid of it in a hurry." - Jun 7 2015
The Fiscal Times: “6 Unsung Novels You Should Read this Summer” by Suzanne McGee - Jun 4 2015
Harvard Review Online: "The novel is marked by deft narrative pacing, a controlled balance of lyricism, biting sarcasm, and devastating cliffhangers throughout." - Jun 4 2015
The Lit Hub: “The Power of Female Friendship” - Jun 4 2015
THE STORY OF A NEW NAME is no.5 on Turnaround Publisher Services May bestseller list. - Jun 4 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND is no.1 on Turnaround Publisher Services May bestseller list! - Jun 3 2015
Kirkus Starred Review: "The enigmatic Ferrante..has created a mythic portrait of a female friendship." - Jun 3 2015
MY BRILLIANT FRIEND featured first on Nick Moran’s “The Millions Top 10: May 2015” list on The Millions. - Jun 2 2015
Turnaround Publisher Services: "This is a novel about humanity, about growing up in a rapidly-changing world, about dissatisfaction with one’s station in life." - Jun 1 2015
Andrea Dunlop’s blog: “The mystery seems to be working for her—though it’s earned her some scorn from the press—and she represents a particular fantasy: that of being able to produce one’s work entirely in peace.” - May 31 2015
1streading: "The Lost Daughter asks many questions about motherhood but does not provide easy answers; in fact, it leaves us certain there are none." - May 28 2015
Publisher's Weekly Starred Review: "This stunning conclusion further solidifies the Neapolitan novels as Ferrante's masterpiece and guarantees that this reclusive author will remain far from obscure for years to come." - May 25 2015
Cannoball Read 7: "Ferrante’s writing is reminiscent of the great Russian novelists." - May 24 2015
David's Book World: "As with My Brilliant Friend, this second novel ends on something of a cliffhanger" - May 17 2015
Merle Bookwrites: "it feels real, not simply another mass-produced novel using the same old techniques to achieve predictable effects." - May 17 2015
Catching #FerranteFever: " Reading Ferrante is like following a crackling fuse with your eyes; each line of text burns across the page." - May 17 2015
On my radar: Bryony Lavery’s cultural highlights: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante - May 16 2015
Book Riot: With Friends Like These, Who Needs (the word) Frenemies? - May 13 2015
One of Lit Hub's Five Intense Books for Mother's Day - May 10 2015
Heavenali: "Questions of education and the aspirations of leaving behind the place you come from, are juxtaposed with the fates of those who never stray far beyond the street they were born." - May 7 2015
The Rumpus: "Both Szabo and Ferrante have created magnificent, outsize portraits of women to which their writer-narrators are destined to miserably compare themselves." - Apr 30 2015
New Humanist: “Ferrante’s remarkable achievement so far is to combine the 'large, loose, baggy monster' mode of novel and feminist polemic, without killing the appeal of the first or the force of the second.” - Apr 28 2015
Taking off the mask: Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels: In these compelling books, the Italian writer - whose real identity is hidden - combines the novel with feminist polemic. - Apr 25 2015
Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knausgaard are writing true life in fiction: "Together they weigh two kilograms, stand as high as a hedge and are so good they make other writers sigh heavily and wonder about another line of work." - Apr 24 2015
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is #1 in Norway! - Apr 20 2015
Fairfield Books On Station: "At the core of the Neapolitan Novels is an exploration of the vibrant, competitive, demanding friendship between Elena and Lila." - Apr 19 2015
Heavenali: "This is a novel of friendship and discovery, a coming of age novel in which two girls grow up to young womanhood with an ever gradually expanding realisation of their potentialities." - Apr 15 2015
Elena Ferrante versus Italy: How the novelist's global success has rattled Italy's stale, male establishment - Apr 7 2015
Food for Bookworms: ‘My Brilliant Friend’ by Elena Ferrante – A Unique Friendship Blossoms in 1950s Italy - Mar 16 2015
Namara Smith's Review of The Neapolitan Novels on Bookforum - Mar 10 2015
Flavorwire: "Ferrante...made me take myself and my complex feelings about my many years of forgotten and enduring friendships seriously...I can't think of a greater feminist achievement for a piece of literature." - Feb 20 2015
BookRiot: "If #ferrantefever is any indication, the Neopolitan novels are gripping and impossible to put down." - Jan 14 2015
Slate's Audio Book Club Discusses My Brilliant Friend - Dec 2 2014
Next City: 10 Great Novels Every Urbanist Should Read - Nov 25 2014
Nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2015 - Oct 28 2014
#9 on The L.A. Times Bestseller List - Oct 15 2014
#7 on NAIBA Indie Bestseller List - Sep 19 2014
#13 on the New England Indie Bestseller List - Sep 19 2014
#9 on the New Atlantic Indie Bestseller List - Sep 7 2014
The Week: Richard House's 6 favorite books - Aug 15 2014
Vogue: My Brilliant Friend helps "female friendship get its literary due." - Aug 14 2014
Rain Taxi: "A whirlwind account of friendship." - Aug 7 2014
JacquiWine's Journal: "[I'm] desperate to read the next installment in this utterly compelling story" - Aug 7 2014
Mona Simpson at Refinery 29: "She's a Neapolitan Alice Munro." - Aug 6 2014
The Writes of Woman: "A compelling novel." - Jul 31 2014
The Hairpin: "The writing is richly theoretical, the female experience semiotic and bestial." - Jul 17 2014
Wisconsin Public Radio: Books Worth Reading - Jul 10 2014
Mary Whipple Review: "Recreates the mysteries that will always surround our parents." - Jun 23 2014
Tony's Reading List: "violent and breathtaking" - Jun 19 2014
Esquire: Books Every Man Should Read - Jun 19 2014
Mona Simpson at B&N Review: "Elena Ferrante is the Italian Alice Munro." - Jun 12 2014
The Guardian: "Ferrante is a master of the unsayable" - May 27 2014
A Year of Reading the World: "An enthralling reading experience, reminiscent of those childhood immersions in a story that turn the volume of the real world down to a whisper." - May 22 2014
Public Books: Public Picks 2014 - May 19 2014
Lizzy's Literary Life: "So much life, passion and drama in the lives of these two women" - May 16 2014
Tin House: "[Ferrante] holds nothing back from her portrayal of gender and culture and her writing is able to truly speak for itself." - May 7 2014
The Huffington Post: Nine Novels to Give Mom for Mother's Day - May 1 2014
Everyday eBook: "Elena's voice is meticulous, elegant and analytical on the surface but pulsing with barely contained emotion." - May 1 2014
Historical Novel Society: "Depicts a complicated friendship between two women amid the ins and outs of everyday life." - Apr 16 2014
The Story of a New Name Is a Finalist for the 2014 Best Translated Book Award - Apr 15 2014
Los Angeles Times: "Best Translated Book Award Finalists Announced" - Apr 1 2014
Elle: "If that's not a great literary novel, I don't know what is." - Mar 27 2014
Thre Percent: "[Ferrante's] brilliance isn’t limited to her mechanics, her finesse or her creativity as a writer, but it’s her willingness to continually address the psychological machinations of women who have very unfeminine feelings." - Mar 20 2014
Goop Spring Break Reading: "Now two books into her trilogy, little-known Italian author Elena Ferrante tackles girlhood and friendship with amazing force." - Feb 4 2014
Bookforum: "Elena Ferrante . . . captures the violence, vulnerability, defensiveness, and seductions of [Naples] with skin-prickling candor." - Jan 8 2014
Ralphmag: "I kept being drawn in to this, to the point that I was neglecting my studies, my friends, my husband." - Jan 7 2014
The West Australian: "Ferrante captures female rage that liquefies any remains of the veneer of civility" - Jan 3 2014
The New York Times Book Review Podcast: "Everybody is talking about these Elena Ferrante Novels!" - Dec 31 2013
Tony's Reading List: Chooses The Story of a New Name as one of 2013's Books of the Year - Dec 20 2013
San Francisco Chronicle: Chooses The Story of a New Name as one of the Best 100 Books of 2013 - Dec 20 2013
The New Yorker Blog: James Wood chooses The Neapolitan Novels as his Favorite Books of 2013 - Dec 19 2013
The Millions: Ann Hood chooses The Neapolitan Novels as her greatest reading pleasures of 2013 - Dec 15 2013
San Francisco Chronicle: "The elusive yet volcanic Italian author Elena Ferrante has become a kind of insiders' icon on both sides of the Atlantic." - Dec 13 2013
The San Francisco Chronicle: "The through-line in all of Ferrante's investigations, for me, is nothing less than one long, mind-and-heart-shredding howl for the history of women (not only Neapolitan women), and its implicit j'accuse." - Dec 13 2013
The Millions: Elizabeth Strout says that reading Ferrante "reminded me of that child-like excitement when you can’t look up from the page, when your eyes seem to be popping from your head, when you think: I didn’t know books could do this!" - Dec 2 2013
Newpages.com: "so much more than just a coming-of-age story; it is an epic that creates with intimate, small strokes a broad panorama of social displacement." - Nov 26 2013
The Times Literary Supplement: "clear, honest, and [in which] the facts – the facts of ordinary life – are extraordinarily gripping when read" - Nov 18 2013
The New Yorker: "artfully written and absorbing" - Nov 16 2013
Sydney Morning Herald: "they move far from contrivance, logic or respectability to ask uncomfortable questions about how we live, how we love, how we singe an existence in a deeply flawed world that expects pretty acquiescence from its women." - Nov 16 2013
The Age: "ask uncomfortable questions about how we live, how we love, how we singe an existence in a deeply flawed world that expects pretty acquiescence from its women." - Nov 4 2013
NPR Fresh Air: "one of modern fiction's richest portraits of a friendship." - Oct 30 2013
Three Guys One Book: "You are not to turn away from The Story of A New Name if you haven't read the first novel . . . Eventually, you'll go back out of sheer absorption . . . and read My Brilliant Friend anyway." - Oct 29 2013
Waxwing: "one of the most immersive, fascinating, and disquieting novels that I’ve read in the last few years." - Oct 24 2013
Melbourne Review: "Ferrante bewitches with her tiny, intricately drawn world" - Oct 24 2013
Time Out Melbourne: "Ferrante’s prose is deeply passionate" - Oct 23 2013
Bibliophile by the Sea: "[Ferrante] knows how to write about women and their life struggles." - Oct 5 2013
The Economist: "Elena Ferrante may be the best contemporary novelist you have never heard of." - Sep 29 2013
The New York Times Book Review: "Ferrante's gift for recreating real life stems as much from the quiet, unhurried rhythm of her writing as from the people and events shes describes.: - Sep 15 2013
Booklist: "Ferrante's writing in captivating and insightful." - Aug 31 2013
The Australian: "[Ferrante's] gritty, ruthlessly frank novels roar off the page with a barbed fury" - Aug 27 2013
Los Angeles Review of Books: "An engrossing, wildly original contemporary epic about the demonic power of human (and particularly female) creativity checked by the forces of history and society." - Aug 26 2013
Publisher's Weekly: "The women's fraught relationship and shifting fortunes are the life forces of this poignant book." - Jul 29 2013
Readings Australia: "[Ferrante's] prose is stunning and polished, yet retains a raw, stripped-back feel." - Jul 17 2013
Text Publishing: "[The Story of a New Name] is an exhilirating reading experience." - Jul 16 2013
Kirkus Reviews: "Admirers of Ferrante's work will eagerly await the third volume." - Jul 11 2013
Mary Whipple Reviews: "Elena Ferrante creates a vivid picture of Neapolitan life." - Jun 27 2013
Tony's Reading List: "My Brilliant Friend is a book which makes for compelling, compulsive reading..." - Apr 5 2013
Vol. 1 Brooklyn: "Its level of detail, both spatial and in terms of characters major and minor, is practically Dickensian." - Mar 14 2013
Tolstoy is my Cat: "Sharp and honest and pulsating with life." - Feb 8 2013
The Europa Challenge Blog: "[Ferrante's] Naples is bursting with color and life." - Feb 5 2013
Campus Circle's Valentine's Day Reads: "Captivate[s] and tease[s] until you are wrestled into submission." - Feb 1 2013
Times Literary Supplement: "Cinematic in the density of its detail." - Jan 27 2013
Mirabile Dictu: "Rich in detail, it is a witty, moving...chronicle of the friendship of two girls." - Jan 25 2013
The Awl: "Get on the Elena Ferrante Bandwagon" - Jan 21 2013
The New Yorker: "Ferrante's own writing has no limits, is willing to take every thought forward to its most radical conclusion and backwards to its most radical birthing." - Jan 21 2013
The New Yorker: "Her novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader." - Jan 21 2013
The New Yorker: "Her novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader." - Jan 21 2013
The New Yorker: "Her novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader." - Jan 21 2013
The New Yorker: "Her novels are intensely, violently personal, and because of this they seem to dangle bristling key chains of confession before the unsuspecting reader." - Dec 6 2012
Publishers Weekly - Interview - Nov 9 2012
Boston Bibliophile: "Subtle and artfully crafted book." - Nov 9 2012
The Boston Globe's "New and Recommended" list: "Four phantasmagoric, disorienting novels." - Oct 22 2012
The Barnes and Noble Review: "This gorgeous novel should bring a host of new reader's to one of Italy's most acclaimed authors." - Oct 20 2012
The Europa Challenge: "Even in translation, Ferrante makes every word in every sentence count" - Oct 20 2012
The Boston Globe: "Everyone should read anything with [Elena Ferrante's] name on it." - Oct 4 2012
Vogue: "One of the more nuanced portraits of feminine friendship in recent memory." - Oct 1 2012
San Francisco Chronicle: "Ferrante, beautifully translated by Ann Goldstein...writes with a ferocious, intimate urgency." - Sep 19 2012
Bibliophile By The Sea: "The translation is excellent...the author is a master of creating a wonderful sense of place." - Sep 18 2012
Shelf Awareness: "Ferrante draws an indelible picture." - Sep 1 2012
Booklist: "A compelling and moving coming-of-age story" - Aug 27 2012
Publishers Weekly: "More than a conventional up-from-poverty tale." - Jun 25 2012
Three Guys One Book: "Europa Editions is the small press with the big books." - Jul 3 2008
Words Without Borders: "[Ferrante] navigates the emotional minefields and unsparingly tallies the cycle of psychological damage among multiple generations of women in Leda's family in straightforward, almost curt language." - Jul 1 2008
Three Percent: "In this brave and searing novel by Elena Ferrante, The Lost Daughter explores the psyche of a woman who regrets having children." - Jun 3 2008
The New Yorker: "Ferrante's gift for psychological horror renders it immediate and visceral" - May 23 2008
The Seattle Times: "This superb and scary Italian writer . . . has blown the lid off tempestuous parent-child relations." - May 12 2008
The Boston Globe: "So refined, almost translucent, that it seems about to float away, in the end this piercing novel is not so easily dislodged from the memory." - Apr 30 2008
World Literature Today: "Another intense meditation n womanhood and motherhood from the author of The Days of Abandonment." - Apr 30 2008
Booklist: "It’s Leda’s voice that’s hypnotic, and it’s the writing that makes it that way. Ferrante can do a woman’s interior dialogue like no one else, with a ferocity that is shockingly honest, unnervingly blunt" - Mar 13 2008
Publishers Weekly: "Ferrante’s prose is stunningly candid, direct and unforgettable. From simple elements, she builds a powerful tale of hope and regret." - Jan 10 2007
Sanditan.com: "Brief ... but one of the most riveting and intense books about mothers and daughters (!) I’ve ever seen." - Nov 10 2006
Ready Steady Book: "Ferrante’s writing is raw and earthy [...] Her blunt use of language communicates the urgency and disorder experienced by Delia, drawing readers with her on the journey of discovery." - Oct 26 2006
The New Yorker: "Ferrante’s polished language belies the rawness of her imagery, which conveys perversity, violence, and bodily functions in ripe detail." - Oct 3 2006
The Seattle Times: "both [The Days of Abandonment & Troubling Love] are tour de forces, and harrowing tours of a feminine psyche under siege. They both confirm Ferrante's reputation as one of Italy's best contemporary novelists." - Sep 26 2006
New York Times: "It’s the first time a novel ever made me get physical, and it was the first good mood I’d been in for weeks." - Sep 22 2006
London Review: "Everything Olga encounters becomes part of her pattern of thinking, and is accommodated as though it had always existed. This, rather than any graphic ‘candour’, is what makes Ferrante’s writing extraordinary." - Sep 22 2006
Time Out New York: "Like Joyce’s Ulysses, this journey draws vigorously on its cityscape. Naples is one of those sun-drenched spooky cities, thrumming with life and populated by ghosts, spastic with impermeable local culture." - Sep 5 2006
The Complete Review: " For those who like their family sagas down and dirty, Ferrante certainly delivers the goods." - Aug 24 2006
Booklist: "Pseudonymous Italian novelist Ferrante ... delivers a brutally frank tale about the dangerous intersection of rage and desire." - Aug 24 2006
Library Journal: "With the quick-paced mystery guiding the story, Delia explores her relationship with her mother, unraveling memories and secrets repressed since childhood and coming to terms with an upbringing filled with jealousy and violence." - Jun 27 2006
Publishers Weekly: "In tactile, beautifully restrained prose, Ferrante makes the domestic violence that tore the household apart evident." - May 20 2006
Financial Times: "Ferrante puts hammer to flesh and invites her reader to penetrate the page." - Feb 1 2006
San Diego Union-Tribune: "...Every now and again, an author comes along who dares to remind us that the very pain of abandonment can ratchet us back a few evolutionary notches, knock us to the ground and leave us crawling, babbling like beasts." - Dec 28 2005
Philadelphia Inquirer: "Elena Ferrante's The Days of Abandonment stands as a masterpiece of a particular sort of solitude: that felt by the wife summarily dismissed by her husband." - Dec 8 2005
The New Yorker: "a deeply observed, excrutiatingly blunt novel." - Nov 5 2005
Seattle Times: within many a modern marriage there's a "greek tragedy waiting to happen" and Elena Ferrante opens the curtains on one. - Nov 3 2005
New York Times: The Days of Abandonment gains a spot in the NYT Editor's Choice list. - Oct 1 2005
Literary Review: "In novelist Elena Ferrante's hands, being abandoned is not a passive condition. On the contrary, it ushers the heroine of The Days of Abandonment into the most intensely lived weeks of her existence." - Sep 27 2005
New York TImes: "Ferrante's theme, while a staple of commercial fiction and television dramas, has seldom received such close scrutiny in literary fiction." - Aug 29 2005
New York Times: "Its popularity in Italy is understandable, since both its emotional and carnal candor are so potent."