Finding Ferrante: Authorship and the Politics of World Literature

by Alessia Ricciardi

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels achieved stunning global success in part because of the mystery surrounding their pseudonymous author. English-speaking readers were tantalized by her enigmatic biography as well as what they took to be her authentic portrayal of working-class Naples. However, we now know that the person behind the writing is most likely Anita Raja, a prominent translator of German literature whose background is very different from Ferrante’s supposed life.

In Finding Ferrante , Alessia Ricciardi revisits questions about Ferrante’s identity to show how the problem of authorship is deeply intertwined with the novels’ literary ambition and politics. Going beyond the local and national cultures of Naples and Italy, Ricciardi reads Ferrante’s fiction as world literature, foregrounding Raja’s work as a translator. She examines the novels’ engagement with German literature and criticism, particularly Goethe, Walter Benjamin, and Christa Wolf, while also tracing the influence of Italian thinkers such as Antonio Gramsci, Carla Lonzi, and the Milan Women’s Bookstore Collective. Considering central questions of sexuality, work, politics, and place, Ricciardi demonstrates how intertextual resonances reshape our understanding of Lila and Elena, the protagonists of the Neapolitan Quartet, as well as the characters and language of Ferrante’s other books.

This bold reconsideration of one of today’s most acclaimed authors reveals Ferrante’s works as fiercely intellectual, showing their deep concern with feminist and cultural politics and the ethical and political stakes of literature.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published May 25, 2021

Reviews

[B. H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think I have ever had these many thoughts about a book in my life. I am going to write down my notes and come back with a full review.

[ink · Rating 5 out of 5]

read for thesis

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised at the author's take that Ferrante's identity is relevant to her work (given the "controversy surrounding Gatti’s unmasking of Raja, perhaps out of excessive politeness"), but she makes an interesting case that Ferrante's insistence on anonymity is a "Pyrrhic victory at best" and reads her works through both her german and Italian legacies. I enjoyed most the explanations of what's lost in the original Italian through English translations (eg the subaltern) and also the evidence of Ferrante / Raja's identity, through the original work of Italian translation of Goethe's Faust as the introduction to the quartet (which I wouldn't have known, not being able to read in german or italian!) .

Some gems:

"Comparing Ferrante and Knausgaard in fact has become something of a
nervous tic among the sort of readers who avidly watch the stock market of
authorial prestige"

"Does this history reassure us that it now would be welcome, satisfying, or interesting for a man to claim to be Madame Bovary, as Flaubert did two centuries ago?"

[Chythan · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5/5)

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Makes me want to re read them. Picking up Faust asap and others. Has anyone else picked up any recs from this book they’ve liked?