Reading Order
Neapolitan NovelsNeapolitan Quartet Reading Order
Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend (2011, translated by Ann Goldstein) is the first novel in the Neapolitan Quartet — the cycle of four novels following Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo from childhood in a poor Naples neighborhood in the 1950s through old age at the turn of the twenty-first century. Written under a pseudonym by the famously reclusive Italian author known as Elena Ferrante, the quartet — My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child — is widely considered one of the greatest achievements in contemporary literary fiction, a portrait of female friendship, rivalry, ambition, and the tangled relationship between education and class that has sold more than ten million copies in translation.
Where to start
My Brilliant Friend
Complete Neapolitan Novels Book List
Neapolitan Novels — Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read all four Neapolitan novels?
My Brilliant Friend functions as a stand-alone novel — it covers Elena and Lila's childhood and early adolescence and ends at a natural stopping point — but the quartet is designed as one continuous narrative, and most readers find that the experience of the four books together is qualitatively different from any single volume. The Story of a New Name, which covers the girls' transition into womanhood and early marriage, is often considered the most emotionally intense of the four. Most readers who begin the quartet complete it.
Who is Elena Ferrante?
Elena Ferrante is a pseudonym for an Italian author whose real identity is unknown and has been the subject of significant journalistic investigation. Ferrante has stated that she wishes to let the books speak for themselves without the distraction of a public persona. The most widely discussed candidate based on documentary investigation is the translator Anita Raja, but Ferrante has consistently declined to confirm or deny any identification. The anonymity is itself part of the literary project — Ferrante has written thoughtfully about why she believes a writer's public persona distorts the reception of her work.
What is the Neapolitan Quartet about?
The Neapolitan Quartet follows two women — Elena Greco, the narrator, and Lila Cerullo, the brilliant friend — from childhood in a violent, impoverished Naples neighborhood in the 1950s through old age. It is a novel about female friendship and rivalry, the difference that education and class make in women's lives, the constraints that Italian patriarchal society places on women, the political transformations of postwar Italy, and the impossibility of fully knowing even the people closest to you. It is also one of the most compelling portrayals of intellectual jealousy in literary fiction.
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