Elena Ferrante: An Answer?
A Note to Readers: In response to many queries and comments, we want to make it clear that the two-part investigation of Elena Ferrante by Claudio Gatti was undertaken on behalf of Mr. Gatti’s Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. After the Il Sole investigation was completed and definitely scheduled to appear on October 2 in Il Soleas well as in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and on the French website Mediapart, an English version of both articles was offered to the NYR Daily for publication on the same day. We regret any confusion about the origins of the Il Soleinvestigation and publication.
Readers may be interested in two extensive discussions of Elena Ferrante’s work in The New York Review, by Rachel Donadio and by Roger Cohen, in December 2014 and in May 2016.
—The Editors, October 10, 2016
Ever since the first novel by Elena Ferrante was published in Italy in 1992, and especially since the sensational success of the four novels that make up the Neapolitan quartet (2011-2014), there has been much speculation about the writer’s identity. Until now, there were never any photos and almost nothing has been known about her. Yet she has been an oddly public figure in recent years, granting numerous interviews through her small Rome-based publisher, Edizione e/o, and gathering together a volume purporting in part to outline her family background, Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey,which will be published in the United States on November 1.
