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Elena Ferrante

    April 5, 1943

    This pseudonymous Italian novelist delves into the complexities of human relationships and societal structures within her narratives. Her prose is celebrated for its raw honesty and incisive psychological depth, drawing readers into the intimate worlds of her characters. Ferrante masterfully explores themes of identity, friendship, and the profound impact of environment on shaping one's character. Her distinctive literary explorations of these universal concerns have solidified her position as a significant contemporary literary voice.

    The Days of Abandonment
    Frantumaglia
    My Brilliant Friend
    Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
    The story of the lost child
    The Story of a New Name
    • Reflections on reading and writing from the author of My Brilliant Friend.

      In the Margins2022
      3.8
    • Die Geschichte der lebenslangen Freundschaft zwischen Lila und Elena begeisterte Millionen. Als Kinder begegnen sich die beiden zum ersten Mal im Neapel der 50er Jahre. Sehr bald gehen sie getrennte Wege. Jede für sich erlebt Liebe, Arbeit, Ehe, Mutterschaft, die Umwälzungen im Land, das Vergehen der Jahre, und doch bleiben sie zeit ihres Lebens unmissverständlich aufeinander bezogen. Bis die eine spurlos verschwindet und der anderen nichts bleibt, als dagegen anzuschreiben: Die Neapolitanische Saga beginnt. Vier Bände, ein literarisches Ereignis, jetzt im Schuber zum großartigen Preis.

      Die Neapolitanische Saga2020
      4.8
    • The Lying Life of Adults

      • 322 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      From the author of My Brilliant Friend, a powerful new novel set in a divided Naples. Soon to be adapted into a NETFLIX original series.

      The Lying Life of Adults2019
      3.7
    • Incidental inventions

      • 112 pages
      • 4 hours of reading

      With these words, Elena Ferrante bid farewell to her year-long collaboration with the Guardian newspaper. For a full year, she wrote an article each week, the subjects of which had been suggested by Guardian editors, making the writing process a form of prolonged interlocution.

      Incidental inventions2019
      3.9
    • Geniální přítelkyně 1-4

      • 4 volumes
      • 1519 pages
      • 54 hours of reading

      Třetí díl epické tetralogie, v jejímž centru je příběh přátelství dvou výjimečných dívek. Z geniálních přítelkyň Eleny a Lily se staly mladé ženy. Zdá se, že se jejich cesty definitivně rozcházejí. Elena se stěhuje do Florencie, kde chce budovat spisovatelskou kariéru, Lila zůstává v bídě neapolské periferie. Po opojení svobodou a prosperitou báječných šedesátých let přicházejí jako drsné vystřízlivění "olověná" léta sedmdesátá, kdy je Itálie zmítaná teroristickými útoky pravicových i levicových extremistů, prostředí univerzit i kulturních institucí se politizuje, vykřikují se zde hesla o nutnosti třídního boje, studenti i intelektuálové se angažují, ale podmínky dělníků se nijak nelepší. Elena by ráda žila revolučním kvasem, ale dokáže dát svému životu náboj a směr sama bez Lily? Lze přátelství udržovat jen "po telefonu", nebo je lepší pouto mezi hlasy bez těla utnout? Za příběhem Eleny a Lily se i nadále roztáčí sugestivní kaleidoskop životů obyvatel jejich rodné čtvrti, propletenec lásek, křivd, nevraživosti, žárlivosti, věrnosti i zrady. Nakladatelská anotace. Kráceno.

      Geniální přítelkyně 1-42018
      4.6
    • Allein am Strand zurückgelassen und ganz auf sich gestellt – die Puppe Celina durchlebt eine schreckliche Nacht. Der schäbige Strandwärter versucht, ihr die Worte zu rauben und sie mit seinem großen Rechen aufzukehren wie Müll, das Feuer will sie verbrennen, und das Meer erhört keines ihrer Gebete. Aber Schlimmste ist: Ihre Puppenmutter, das kleine Mädchen Mati, hat sie vergessen, denn Mati hat jetzt ein kleines Kätzchen zur Spielgefährtin. Ein Unglück folgt aufs Nächste, bis die Nacht sich in einen Tag verwandelt, und als die Sonne aufgeht, sieht Celina plötzlich alles ein wenig klarer. Der Strand bei Nacht ist die rätselhafte, berührende, überraschende Geschichte einer Puppe mit zerbrechlicher Seele und allzu menschlichen Gefühlen. Elena Ferrantes unverwechselbare Verlebendigungskunst und Mara Cerris traumähnliche Bilder fügen sich zu einem eindringlichen Leseerlebnis für kleine und große Ferrante-Fans.

      Der Strand bei Nacht2017
      3.4
    • The story of the lost child

      • 400 pages
      • 14 hours of reading

      "Nothing quite like this has ever been published before," proclaimed The Guardian about the Neapolitan novels in 2014. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, Elena Ferrante tells the story of a lifelong friendship between two women with unmatched honesty and brilliance.

      The story of the lost child2015
      4.5
    • Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay

      • 418 pages
      • 15 hours of reading

      Since the publication of My Brilliant Friend, the first of the Neapolitan novels, Elena Ferrante's fame as one of our most compelling, insightful, and stylish contemporary authors has grown enormously. She has gained admirers among authors -- Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth Strout, Claire Messud, to name a few --- and critics -- James Wood, John Freeman, Eugenia Williamson, for example. But her most resounding success has undoubtedly been with readers, who have discovered in Ferrante a writer who speaks with great power and beauty of the mysteries of belonging, human relationships, love, family, and friendship§In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her husband and the comforts her marriage brought and now works as a common laborer. Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women have attempted are pushing against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance and submission. They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up during the nineteen-seventies. Yet they are still very much bound to each other by a strong, unbreakable bond

      Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay2014
      4.4
    • The Story of a New Name

      • 471 pages
      • 17 hours of reading

      The international bestseller, now in B-format paperback with a brand new cover.

      The Story of a New Name2012
      4.6
    • Cronache del mal d'amore

      L'amore molesto - I giorni dell'abbandono - La figlia oscura

      • 508 pages
      • 18 hours of reading

      Ammirazione, stupore e incredulità destò nel 1991 l’uscita dell’ Amore molesto . Chi era questa scrittrice che si firmava Elena Ferrante e dichiarava di aver vissuto molto tempo a Napoli e poi in Grecia? Già in quel primo romanzo la sua voce era decisa, nitida, perfetta. Una voce che alla fitta trama coniugava l’atmosfera soffocante del romanzo poliziesco americano, il gesticolare patetico e comico dei grandi personaggi di Samuel Beckett, gli angoscianti dubbi sulla propria identità di Virginia Woolf, e la confusa e allo stesso tempo cruciale caccia ai fantasmi di Henry James. Difficile dare un’etichetta a un tale romanzo: una donna di circa quarantacinque anni che, di fronte all’improvvisa e misteriosa morte della madre, tenta di appurare come si sono svolti i fatti. Undici anni dopo, nel 2002, uscì I giorni dell’abbandono , opera meno oscura sebbene altrettanto cupa e di grande impatto; una peripezia di disamore, solitudine e disperazione senza un briciolo di sentimentalismo, senza una pagina superflua. Pubblico e critica tornarono a mostrarsi ancora più ammirati ed entusiasti. Nel 2006 fu pubblicato un terzo romanzo, La figlia oscura , incentrato sui rapporti tra una madre e le sue due figlie.

      Cronache del mal d'amore2012
      3.9
    • My Brilliant Friend

      • 331 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      Beginning in the 1950s Elena and Lila grow up in Naples, Italy, mirroring two different aspects of their nation. (This book was previously listed in Forecast.) Original. 50,000 first printing.

      My Brilliant Friend2011
      4.3
    • The Lost Daughter

      • 204 pages
      • 8 hours of reading

      Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to the Ionian coast for a vacation. But she soon finds herself intrigued by Nina, a young mother on the beach, eventually striking up a conversation with her. After Nina confides a dark secret, one seemingly trivial occurrence leads to events that could destroy Nina’s family.

      The Lost Daughter2007
      3.7
    • Frantumaglia

      • 400 pages
      • 14 hours of reading

      Named one of The Guardian's "Best Books of 2016" From the author of My Brilliant Friend This book invites readers into Elena Ferrante's workshop. It 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 My Brilliant Friend, known in English as the Neapolitan Quartet. Consisting of over 20 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.

      Frantumaglia2003
      4.1
    • The Days of Abandonment

      • 188 pages
      • 7 hours of reading

      A national bestseller for almost an entire year, The Days of Abandonment shocked and captivated its Italian public when first published. It is the gripping story of a woman's descent into devastating emptiness after being abandoned by her husband with two young children to care for. When she finds herself literally trapped within the four walls of their high-rise apartment, she is forced to confront her ghosts, the potential loss of her own identity, and the possibility that life may never return to normal.

      The Days of Abandonment2002
      3.9
    • Troubling Love

      • 139 pages
      • 5 hours of reading

      Set in Naples, Italy, this debut novel by New York Times bestselling author Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend, The Days of Abandonment) tells a story about mothers and daughters and the complicated knot of lies, emotions, and shared history than binds them.Following her mother's untimely and mysterious death, Delia embarks on a voyage of discovery through the chaotic, suffocating streets of her native Naples in search of the truth about her family. A series of mysterious telephone calls leads her to compelling and disturbing revelations about her mother's final days.As the New York Times wrote about this novel, "the raging, torrential voice of the author is something rare." Troubling Love is indeed a rare look into the abiding preoccupations and obsessions that bring millions of readers all over the world to her fiction.

      Troubling Love1994
      3.4