Elena Ferrante as World Literature

"A model of academic praxis." - Public BooksElena Ferrante as World Literature is the first English-language monograph on Italian writer Elena Ferrante, whose four Neapolitan Novels (2011-2014) became a global phenomenon. The book proposes that Ferrante constructs a theory of feminine experience which serves as the scaffolding for her own literary practice. Drawing on the writer’s entire textual corpus to date, Stiliana Milkova examines the linguistic, psychical, and corporeal-spatial realities that constitute the female subjects Ferrante has theorized. At stake in Ferrante’s theory/practice is the articulation of a feminine subjectivity that emerges from the structures of patriarchal oppression and that resists, bypasses, or subverts these very structures. Milkova’s inquiry proceeds from Ferrante’s theory of frantumaglia and smarginatura to explore mechanisms for controlling and containing the female body and mind, forms of female authorship and creativity, and corporeal negotiations of urban topography and patriarchal space. Elena Ferrante as World Literature sets forth an interdisciplinary framework for understanding Ferrante's texts and offers an account of her literary and cultural significance today.

Stiliana Milkova has written a compelling and highly readable study of Ferrante’s fiction [that] is interested more than anything about what the text itself reveals about Ferrante’s poetics and politics, explaining as a result, what makes Ferrante’s texts so addictive to read and such a pleasure to analyze. This one is for the academics and casual fans alike., Written with remarkable competence and flair, and accompanied by a rich bibliography, Elena Ferrante as World Literature constitutes an essential reference for Ferrante scholars and an ideal textbook for any university course on Elena Ferrante in the anglophone world., Stiliana Milkova leads us on a tour through Ferrante’s world of women and female subjectivity, exploring the themes of mothers and daughters, friendships between women, women and their bodies, girls and their dolls, women reading and writing--and their connections from novel to novel--in a fascinating and thought-provoking way that makes us want to go back to the books with a new understanding., A very rich and original perspective., Milkova stands as a rightful successor to the Ferrantean exegetic legacy. She does not read against Ferrante, but alongside her, turning what others might perceive as an intrusive presence into a stamp of approval.

Stiliana Milkova Rousseva is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Italian at Oberlin College, USA.