One of The Guardian's Best Books of the Year: Personal writings by
the anonymous author who became a literary phenomenon with My Brilliant
Friend.
The writer known as Elena Ferrante has taken pains to hide her identity
in the hope that readers would focus on her body of work. But in this
volume, she invites us into Elena Ferrante's workshop and offers a
glimpse into the drawers of her writing desk--those drawers from which
emerged her three early standalone novels and the four installments of
the Neapolitan Novels, the New York Times-bestselling "enduring
masterpiece" (The Atlantic).
Consisting of over twenty years of letters, essays, reflections, and
interviews, it is a unique depiction of an author who embodies a
consummate passion for writing. In these pages, Ferrante answers many of
her readers' questions. She addresses her choice to stand aside and let
her books live autonomous lives. She discusses her thoughts and concerns
as her novels are being adapted into films. She talks about the
challenge of finding concise answers to interview questions. She
explains the joys and the struggles of writing, the anguish of composing
a story only to discover that that story isn't good enough. She
contemplates her relationship with psychoanalysis, with the cities she
has lived in, with motherhood, with feminism, and with her childhood as
a storehouse for memories, impressions, and fantasies. The result is a
vibrant and intimate self-portrait of a writer at work.
"Everyone should read anything with Ferrante's name on it." --The
Boston Globe
