Saudi Arabia, Theresa May, Elena Ferrante: Your Friday Briefing
• Ferrante Fever has flared up in Naples, where nearly 5,000 children are vying to audition for HBO’s adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend,” the first of the four smash-hit novels by Elena Ferrante.
The open casting call has injected hysteria and hope in parts of the southern Italian city that is poor in resources but rich in characters.
Separately, our correspondent visited the nearby Villaggio Coppola, built in the 1960s with utopian ambitions. It’s now, in her words, “a sad illustration of Southern Italy’s violated beauty and neglect.”