In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading & Writing

“Everyone should read everything with Elena Ferrante’s name on it.”—The Boston Globe

“Ferrante is an oracle among authors, writing literary epics as illuminating as origin myths, explaining us to ourselves.”—Claire Luchette, O, The Oprah Magazine

Four essays on writing and reading by the internationally bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lying Life of Adults.

About the Author

Elena Ferrante is the author of The Days of Abandonment (Europa, 2005), Troubling Love (Europa, 2006), and The Lost Daughter (Europa, 2008), now a film directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, and Paul Mescal. She is also the author of Incidental Inventions (Europa, 2019), illustrated by Andrea Ucini, Frantumaglia: A Writer's Journey (Europa, 2016) and a children's picture book illustrated by Mara Cerri, The Beach at Night (Europa, 2016). The four volumes known as the "Neapolitan quartet" (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child) were published by Europa Editions in English between 2012 and 2015. My Brilliant Friend, the HBO series directed by Saverio Costanzo, premiered in 2018. Ferrante's most recent novel, the New York Times bestselling The Lying Life of Adults, was published in 2020 by Europa Editions.Ann Goldstein has translated all of Elena Ferrante's books, including the New York Times bestseller, The Lying Life of Adults, and the international bestseller, My Brilliant Friend. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.