Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels: Bookmarked

What is it about Elena Ferrante’s writing, especially her masterwork Neapolitan Novels, that resonates so deeply with millions of readers, making this Italian author who writes under a pseudonym with absolutely no “platform” an international sensation?

Brilliantly addressing issues such as class struggle, female friendship, women’s autonomy, and literary creation itself, Ferrante’s hyperrealist, intense storytelling is a saga of a highly specific place and history, yet somehow also transcends them, resonating on profoundly personal levels with readers of every background.

Gina Frangello grew up in poverty in inner-city Chicago two decades after Ferrante’s most famous characters, Lenu and Lila grew up in Naples. Despite these geographic and cultural differences, Frangello felt that Ferrante was “writing about my youth, my life, my relationships, my struggles.” 

In the latest volume in the Bookmarked series, Gina Frangello contemplates Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels through the lens of memoir, literary criticism, and issues of authorial identity and gender. Should who Ferrante “is” matter? And more importantly, what is it about Lenu and Lila’s story that taps into such universal truths that makes readers feel that Ferrante is writing specifically to them? 

Gina Frangello’s memoir, Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and BookPage, and was included on numerous “Best of 2021” lists including at Lithub, BookPage and The Chicago Review of Books. Gina is also the author of four books of fiction, including A Life in Men and Every Kind of Wanting. She lives with her family in Chicago.