Naples' Little Women: The Fiction of Elena Ferrante

Elena Ferrante’s fiction covers the psychic landscape of women who come of age in post-WWII Italy, who struggle to escape poverty and juggle the demands of career and family. Her narrator’s voice is at once ferocious, intimate, and uncensored. Most remarkable for our media-obsessed age is that the author’s identity is a mystery as compelling as one of her plots. This critical study of her seven novels by Professor Mullenneaux integrates Ferrante’s own thoughts on her books from "La frantumaglia" (2003) with their critical reception since 1992. Chapters are dedicated to each novel and to the author’s signature themes—mothers and daughters, female friendship, and Naples as a “city in spite of itself”—to illuminate and extend Ferrante’s unique contribution to world literature. An essential resource for anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge of one of Italy’s best-loved contemporary writers.