The Neapolitan Novels

OVER 5 MILLION COPIES SOLD IN ENGLISH WORLDWIDEOVER 14 MILLION COPIES OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDEGUARDIAN 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY. From one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a friendship that lasts a lifetime. The story of Elena and Lila begins in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighbourhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else, as their friendship, beautifully and meticulously rendered, becomes a not always perfect shelter from hardship. Ferrante has created a memorable portrait of two women, but My Brilliant Friend is also the story of a nation. Through the lives of Elena and Lila, Ferrante gives her readers the story of a city and a country undergoing momentous change. “Nothing quite like it has ever been published.”—Guardian “Elena Ferrante has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy—and the world.”—The Sunday Times “This is high stakes, subversive literature.”—The Telegraph

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OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE. The Story of a New Name, the second book of the Neapolitan Quartet, picks up the story where My Brilliant Friend left off. Lila has recently married and made her entrée into the family business; Elena, meanwhile, continues her studies and her exploration of the world beyond the neighbourhood that she so often finds stifling. Love, jealousy, family, freedom, commitment, and above all friendship: these are signs under which both women live out this phase in their stories. Marriage appears to have imprisoned Lila, and the pressure to excel is at times too much for Elena. Yet the two young women share a complex and evolving bond that is central to their emotional lives and is a source of strength in the face of life’s challenges. In the Neapolitan Quartet, Elena Ferrante gives readers a poignant and universal story about friendship and belonging.

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OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE “Nothing quite like this has ever been published before.”—The Guardian “This is high stakes, subversive literature.”—The Daily Telegraph “With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy—and the world.”—The Sunday Times “An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled.”—Jhumpa Lahiri “An extraordinary epic.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory.”—The Times “Ferrante’s writing seems to say something that hasn’t been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep.”—London Review of Books “Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship.”—The Times Literary Supplement. Set in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay continues the story of the feisty and rebellious Lila and her lifelong friend, the brilliant and bookish Elena. Lila, after separating from her husband, is living with her young son in a new neighbourhood of Naples and working at a local factory. Elena has left Naples, earned a degree from an elite college, and published a novel, all of which has opened the doors to a world of learned and fascinating interlocutors. The era, with its dramatic changes in sexual politics and social costumes, with its seemingly limitless number of new possibilities, is rendered with breathtaking vigour. This third Neapolitan Novel is not only a moving story of friendship but also a searing portrait of a rapidly changing world.

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OVER 14M OF THE NEAPOLITAN QUARTET SOLD WORLDWIDE. Nothing quite like this has ever been published before.”—The Guardian "This is high stakes, subversive literature.”—The Daily Telegraph “With the publication of her Neapolitan Novels, (Ferrante) has established herself as the foremost writer in Italy—and the world.”—The Sunday Times “An unconditional masterpiece . . . I was totally enthralled.”—Jhumpa Lahiri “An extraordinary epic.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “To the uninitiated, Elena Ferrante is best described as Balzac meets The Sopranos and rewrites feminist theory.”—The Times “Ferrante’s writing seems to say something that hasn’t been said before, in a way so compelling its readers forget where they are, abandon friends and disdain sleep.”—London Review of Books “Stunning. An intense, forensic exploration of friendship.”—The Times Literary Supplement. The Story of the Lost Child is the concluding volume in the dazzling saga of two women— the brilliant, bookish Elena, and the fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both are now adults, with husbands, lovers, aging parents, and children. Their friendship has been the gravitational center of their lives. Both women fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up—a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. In this final novel she has returned to Naples, drawn back as if responding to the city’s obscure magnetism. Lila, on the other hand, could never free herself from the city of her birth. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect the neighborhood. Proximity to the world she has always rejected only brings her role as its unacknowledged leader into relief. For Lila is unstoppable, unmanageable, unforgettable. 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.

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