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 Friend Series
This sweeping saga chronicles the intense, complex friendship between two women navigating their lives in post-war Naples. Starting from humble, often violent beginnings, they strive for education and upward mobility, their paths diverging and converging over decades. The narrative delves into themes of ambition, betrayal, class, and the enduring power of connection. It's a profound exploration of female identity and the societal forces that shape it.
Recommended Reading Order
- 1
- 2
The Story of a New Name
- 471 pages
- 17 hours of reading
In this follow-up to My Brilliant Friend, Lila is imprisoned by marriage, while Elena continues her journey of self-discovery, until their friendship, which is at the center of their emotional lives, forces them both to mature into women. Original.
- 3
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
- 4
The story of the lost child
- 473 pages
- 17 hours of reading
Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, this story of a lifelong friendship is told with unmatched honesty. Lila and Elena clash, drift apart, reconcile, and clash again, in the process revealing new facets of their friendship.
Geniální přítelkyně 1-4
- 4 volumes
- 1519 pages
- 54 hours of reading
Tato knižní sada zahrnuje čtyři romány od Eleny Ferrante, které sledují životy dvou nerozlučných přítelkyň, Leny a Raffaelly, v Neapoli. Příběh začíná v 50. letech 20. století a mapuje jejich přátelství od dětství až po dospělost, přičemž se zaměřuje na jejich osobní a profesní vývoj. Hlavními tématy jsou komplexnost ženského přátelství, sociální a ekonomické rozdíly, a vliv prostředí na individuální životní dráhy. Lena, ambiciózní a intelektuální, usiluje o vzdělání a úspěch, zatímco Raffaella, známá jako Lila, je charismatická a rebelující, avšak její život je poznamenán těžkými rozhodnutími a omezeními, která jí klade společnost. Romány se zabývají otázkami identity, genderových rolí a kulturního kontextu, přičemž čtenářům poskytují hluboký pohled na dynamiku mezi jednotlivci a jejich komunitou. Ferrante kombinuje realistické popisy s psychologickými analýzami, což umožňuje čtenářům lépe porozumět motivacím a emocím postav. Sada nabízí komplexní pohled na život v Itálii a na proměny společnosti v průběhu několika desetiletí.
