The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
Novels that speak to our time.
I know I’m late to the game—My Brilliant Friend, the first of Ferrante’s quartet, was published in the U.S. in 2012—but I didn’t get to this astonishing story of a friendship between two women in mid-century Naples, Italy, until this year. My loss. Except that, this year of women’s voices, from the Women’s March in January to the #MeToo movement, was the perfect background for the novels. All four are compelling, fresh, layered, fascinating—and they illuminate women’s experiences in a way few others have ever done. I devoured them.
Europa Editions, europaeditions.com
