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The New York Times

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Saudi Arabia, Theresa May, Elena Ferrante: Your Friday Briefing 

By PATRICK BOEHLER – 

• 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.”

The New York Times

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A Casting Call in Naples Lets Children Dream, if for a Day

By JASON HOROWITZ
MAY 18, 2017

NAPLES, Italy — A legion of children raced up a dead-end street in Sanità, a tough Naples neighborhood dripping with laundry and suddenly brimming with the promise of stardom.

Marta Reale, 10, her smile broad, her bangs blanched, made her way to a recreation center’s doorway through the dense crowd of other children, sunlit cigarette smoke and mothers fanning themselves on the seats of scooters. Above her, more children were hanging out the window, and above them, more were crammed onto a balcony.

Then she approached the desk where she gave her name and age and got a numbered slip of paper and a parental release form. The sign above her head read, “Dream.”

This was not just any casting call, but one for “My Brilliant Friend,” an adaptation of the first of the four smash-hit Neapolitan Novels written by Elena Ferrante, whose hidden identity enthralled the literary world and whose books have sold more than a million copies.

HBO and the Italian state broadcaster RAI caught the Ferrante Fever and are producing an eight-episode mini-series inspired by that first book, introducing international viewers to the complicated relationship of two remarkably gifted girls, Lila (“that terrible, dazzling girl”) and Lenú (“I liked pleasing everyone”), as they grow up and apart in a violent, vivid Naples neighborhood in the lean postwar years.

Continue reading →

The New York Times

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Elena Ferrante Series Coming to HBO

By John Koblin

Ferrante Fever is coming to HBO.

The premium cable channel will broadcast a new drama series based on the international literary hit “My Brilliant Friend,” the book by Elena Ferrante, HBO said on Thursday.

The series, which will include eight episodes in the first season, with the potential for more, will go into production this summer. It will be filmed in Italian and will run with English subtitles on HBO.

Also titled “My Brilliant Friend,” the series will be a coproduction: HBO will carry the series along with the Italian state broadcaster RAI, and the show will be produced by the Italian production company Wildside and Fandango Productions. Wildside also produced the Jude Law series “The Young Pope,” which was broadcast on HBO in America, and made with Canal+ and Sky.

“My Brilliant Friend” is the first of Ms. Ferrante’s four Neapolitan Novels, which trace the friendship of two girls, Elena and Lila, in postwar Naples. The others are “The Story of a New Name,” “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” and “The Story of the Lost Child.”

The TV adaptation of the books was announced earlier this month, though at the time it was unclear which network would carry the series in the United States. The ultimate aim is to adapt all four novels, for a total of 32 episodes.

So far HBO has committed only to the first eight-episode season, but the network said it has the rights to the subsequent seasons based on the other books.

A stage adaptation of the novels debuted in London in February.

Ms. Ferrante, who writes under a pen name, has been at the center of enormous literary world intrigue. Her books have sold millions of copies, and has ignited so-called Ferrante Fever internationally. There have also been several attempts to reveal her identity, with each try kicking up controversy.

Ms. Ferrante will be involved in shepherding “My Brilliant Friend” into a TV series. Saverio Costanzo (“Private,” “Hungry Hearts”) is directing the eight episodes.

In a statement, Casey Bloys, HBO’s president of programming, said: “Through her characters, Elena and Lila, we will witness a lifelong friendship set against the seductive social web of Naples, Italy. An exploration of the complicated intensity of female friendship, these ambitious stories will no doubt resonate with the HBO audience.”

Variety

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HBO, Rai to Adapt Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’ as Drama Series

Nick Vivarelli

ROME – HBO and Italian state broadcaster Rai have teamed up on “My Brilliant Friend,” the hotly anticipated drama series based on the first of four “Neapolitan Novels” written by Italian author Elena Ferrante, whose books have legions of fervent fans around the world.

FremantleMedia-owned Wildside and Domenico Procacci’s Fandango are producing the Italian-language series. The plan is to start shooting this summer in Naples for a premiere targeted in 2018.

Italian director Saverio Costanzo (“Private,” “Hungry Hearts”) will direct. Jennifer Schuur (“Big Love,” “Hannibal”) will serve as executive producer on “My Brilliant Friend” for Wildside and Fandango. The international distributor is FremantleMedia Intl.

Costanzo told Variety that Ferrante’s sweeping saga is “very literary but also very cinematographic” and said he planned to stick as closely as possible to the storyline of the book. “The characters really leap out of the book and come alive,” he said. “That makes it easier for us to transpose this cinematographically.”

Wildside and Fandango envision the series as 32 episodes covering all four books. HBO is on board for the first eight episodes.

Though casting is still being decided, the production is expected to draw widely from the large Neapolitan talent pool.

“My Brilliant Friend” tells the story of elderly woman Elena Greco who, after her best friend Lila disappears without a trace, starts writing the story of their 60-year friendship. It begins in the 1950s in the tough streets of Naples, which undergoes transformations along with the rest of Italy as the two women’s symbiotic, though often conflicted, relationship evolves.

“Through her characters, Elena and Lila, we will witness a lifelong friendship set against the seductive social web of Naples, Italy,” said HBO Programming president Casey Bloys. “An exploration of the complicated intensity of female friendship, these ambitious stories will no doubt resonate with the HBO audience.”

The Ferrante skein marks HBO’s second high-end Italian TV series, following “The Young Pope,” directed by Paolo Sorrentino, which was also co-produced by HBO with Wildside. “Pope” aired in Italy on Sky Italia.

This time, the Italian broadcaster on “My Brilliant Friend” will be Rai. Its  hefty investment in the Ferrante adaptation marks a drastic departure from the more mainstream and largely local TV dramas that have been staples for ages on its general entertainment channels.

“This is an ambitious project that satisfies many of our public service goals,” said Rai Managing Director Antonio Campo Dall’Orto. Striving for quality and cultural value at the mammoth pubcaster represents a novelty.

Costanzo said the vivid characters that Ferrante has crafted will be compelling to a wide range of viewers.

“They are characters that each one of us can inhabit no matter what country you are from,” Costanzo said. “They are so well told, in such detail, that we can all identify with them and their desire to emancipate themselves….Elena Ferrante has managed to tell in the first person things that are very intimate, risky, that we all feel but that you need plenty of courage to admit.”

The 41-year-old director broke out internationally in 2004 with “Private,” which was set in a Palestinian home in an occupied zone. More recently he lensed the New York-set “Hungry Hearts,” co-starring Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher, an offbeat drama based on a novel about New Age diet obsessions.

Costanzo said he was approaching the Ferrante series “as if I were making a big movie. For me the difference between TV and cinema is very subtle; today’s great TV series are cinematographic.”

He added: “From our conversations, I have a sense that HBO are the right people to help us make a great show because they have great faith in the audience.”

Costanzo is currently working on the screenplays for the eight hourlong episodes with top Italian scribes Francesco Piccolo (“Human Capital”), Laura Paolucci (“Gomorrah” the TV series) and with Ferrante herself, although “Elena Ferrante” is a pseudonym. He said he’s been communicating with Ferrante via email.

Last year, an investigative journalist for Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore identified Italian literary translator Anita Raja as Ferrante. Costanzo says his focus is strictly on translating Ferrante’s work to the screen.

“I am among those who are not interested who she [really is]. I am just interested in her literary world, not her human reality,” Costanzo said.

iNews

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The poems that make Olivia Colman, Elena Ferrante, Judi Dench and other ‘grown women’ cry

Elena Ferrante, writer

‘I Took Power in My Hand’ by Emily Dickinson (1862)

At times I’ve read these lines as a reflection on women’s writing, at times as a symbol of any female venture. The first painful fact is that Dickinson has no models of her own sex to refer to, nothing, anyway, that has the aura of David. This is the source of the inevitable comparison with the male figure from the Bible. His hand is bigger, the Power at his disposal is bigger. As a result, Dickinson, in order to make an equivalent gesture, needs twice the boldness.

But what’s the use of being bolder? The woman who takes aim and throws her stone does not confront simply the Goliath of the youth with the slingshot: her Goliath is the entire world. Thus that throw can only be ineffectual, its sole victim the thrower. And so we arrive at the wonderful last two lines. Is the Goliath of the audacious Emily ‘too large’ or is it that she is ‘too small’? That adjective, followed by the question mark, moves me. I wish all Emilys not to be small by nature, I wish they would just try, and try again, and so become large. (Translation by Ann Goldstein)

I took my Power in my Hand–
And went against the World –
’Twas not so much as David – had –
But I – was twice as bold –

I aimed my Pebble – but Myself
Was all the one that fell –
Was it Goliath – was too large –
Or was myself – too small?

The Stage

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Casting announced for Elena Ferrante stage adaptation

by Georgia Snow –

Niamh Cusack and Catherine McCormack are to lead the cast of My Brilliant Friend, the stage adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.

Adapted for the stage by April De Angelis, My Brilliant Friend is directed by Melly Still and premieres at the Rose Theatre Kingston in February.

Running from February 25 to April 2, it will have a press night on March 11.

The new two-part production will star Cusack and McCormack alongside a company made up of Justin Avoth, Adam Burton, Martin Hyder, Victoria Moseley, Emily Mytton, Ira Mandela Siobhan, Jonah Russell, Badria Timimi, Toby Wharton and Emily Wachter.

It has set and costume design by Soutra Gilmour, lighting by Malcolm Rippeth, sound by Jon Nicholls and music by James Fortune.

Movement is by Sarah Dowling and casting by Charlotte Sutton.

The show is produced by the Rose Theatre Kingston.

 

Variety

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Novelist Elena Ferrante Spawns Documentary ‘Ferrante Fever’, Match Factory Takes Sales (EXCLUSIVE)

International Correspondent
@NickVivarelli

My Brilliant Friend

ROME — The “Neapolitan Quartet” novels by pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante, which have attracted legions of fervent fans around the globe, will be the subject of a high-profile documentary titled “Ferrante Fever.” Prominent arthouse sales company The Match Factory has boarded the pic to handle international sales.

The documentary is being directed by Italian multi-hyphenate Giacomo Durzi, who has been shooting in Naples, Turin, Florence and New York. Durzi interviewed American authors Jonathan Franzen and Elizabeth Strout, among others, about their enthusiasm for Ferrante and her books about an intense female friendship set against social changes in Italy from the 1950s to the present.

He also interviewed Ann Goldstein, the New Yorker editor who is Ferrante’s translator in English.

“Ferrante Fever”  is being described as “an attempt to stimulate reflections on the particular reasons for Ferrante’s success, without being seduced by the provocation of making a ‘gossipy’ documentary about her unknown identity,” Durzi said in a statement.

Durzi has several documentaries under his belt, including “SB, I knew him well,” a portrait of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi through the words of those who really knew him.

A screenwriter and a creative consultant for several Italian TV networks, Durzi is working on the “Ferrante Fever” screenplay with Laura Buffoni, an Italian film critic and festival programmer.

The screenplay uses re-enactments of scenes from Ferrante’s novels in the real locations where they are set, archival materials and photographs, and animation inserts to “reconstruct Ferrante’s narrative universe,” according to the production notes.

What “Ferrante Fever” will not be is an investigation into the real identity of Elena Ferrante, a subject which made headlines recently when investigative journalist Claudio Gatti deduced that the writer was Italian translator Anita Raja. His potential unmasking of Raja prompted outrage among many of Ferrante’s fans, who lamented that he had violated her right to privacy and anonymity. Raja has not commented.

“We decided with Ferrante’s publisher not to delve into the issue of who Elena Ferrante is,” said “Ferrante Fever” producer Alessandra Acciai.

“It was very important for me to be in harmony with them,” said Acciai. “It means being on the same page with Elena Ferrante.”

The docu will, however, look into Ferrante’s choice to remain anonymous “which has sparked an unprecedented cultural debate,” Durzi said. Ferrante’s Italian publisher, Edizioni E/O, which also owns the Europa Editions imprint that publishes her books in the U.S., has read various drafts of the docu’s screenplay.

Acciai is co-producing the pic via her Rome-based Malia Film shingle in collaboration with Rai Cinema and Milan-based film marketing company Qmi. Qmi will be releasing the docu theatrically in Italy.

Italian writers and cultural figures who will be interviewed include “Gomorrah” author Roberto Saviano and Neapolitan film director Mario Martone, whose film “L’amore molesto” (Nasty Love) was based on Ferrante’s book “Troubling Love.”

Italian film and TV company Wildside earlier this year announced plans for an eight-episode TV series based on the “Neapolitan Quartet” novels. Still at script stage, it is being co-produced with Domenico Procacci’s Fandango.

“There is a real passion for Ferrante’s four Neapolitan novels; it’s a type of affection for literary works that we’ve not seen for a long time,” said Giovanni Cova, chief of Qmi, which will release the 75-minute doc theatrically in Italy next year via a three-day event release starting April 17.

“It’s an adult audience, but it’s a type of phenomenon that’s similar to what you see with teen literature,” Cova said.

Boston Globe

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The next best thing to Elena Ferrante being there

A row of Elena Ferrante books at the Harvard Book Store.
By Jan Gardner GLOBE CORRESPONDENT 

It may be the next best thing to her being there.

Brookline Booksmith and WBUR have just announced that they will present a conversation on the work of the illusive Elena Ferrante Nov. 29 to mark the publication of Ferrante’s first collection of nonfiction, “Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey,” a collection of letters, essays, and interviews conducted via e-mail.

The event will feature Ann Goldstein, Ferrante’s translator; Vogue book critic Megan O’Grady; and Michael Reynolds, editor in chief of Europa, Ferrante’s US publisher. Christopher Lydon, host of WBUR’s “Open Source,” will moderate the discussion.

Ferrante, a pseudonym for an author desperate to remain unmasked, is best known in the United States for four novels called the Neapolitan series, which chronicle a beautiful and difficult decadeslong friendship between two girls from Naples. The books, translated from the Italian, have quietly and unexpectedly become a huge hit among American readers.

The event will take place at Coolidge Corner Theatre at 6 p.m. Tickets are $5, available through Brookline Booksmith.

Corriere Canadese

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ELENA FERRANTE C’EST MOI: INTERVISTA AD ANN GOLDSTEIN

Elena Ferrante c’est moi: intervista ad Ann Goldstein

di Johnny L. Bertolio

16anngoldstein

TORONTO – La misteriosa Elena Ferrante, almeno in Nord America, ha un volto: è quello di Ann Goldstein, penna del New Yorker e traduttrice di classici italiani, tra cui appunto la Ferrante, Pier Paolo Pasolini e Primo Levi. Traduttrice di una traduttrice, se è vero, come si mormora da tempo e come ha insinuato una recente inchiesta del Sole 24 Ore, che dietro l’autrice dell’“Amica geniale” si cela Anita Raja. Ann Goldstein sarà a Toronto il 15 novembre per la presentazione dell’edizione inglese della “Frantumaglia” (Europa Editions), il volumetto in cui Elena si rivela ai lettori al di fuori di una cornice romanzesca. Il dibattito, co-presentato dall’Istituto italiano di cultura, sarà moderato da Elizabeth Renzetti, editorialista del Globe and Mail.

Miss Goldstein, come nasce il suo incontro con Elena Ferrante?

«I proprietari della casa editrice italiana e/o, Sandro e Sandra Ferri, hanno deciso nel 2004 di aprire una filiale in America: dopo l’11 settembre, pensavano che fosse importante avviare un’iniziativa su base globale. Avevano già pubblicato in Italia i primi due romanzi di Elena Ferrante, “L’amore molesto” e “I giorni dell’abbandono”, e avevano provato a venderli in America, ma senza successo. Come primo libro della neo-nata Europa Editions hanno scelto “I giorni dell’abbandono” e si sono messi alla ricerca di un traduttore. Hanno affidato in prova a circa quattro o cinque candidati il primo capitolo dei ”Giorni dell’abbandono”: e io ho “vinto”. Subito dopo aver cominciato il libro mi è venuta voglia di tradurlo».

Nei romanzi di Elena Ferrante la lingua scorre senza intoppi e le incursioni dialettali sono minime; eppure, concetti come quello di “smarginatura” non sono così semplici da tradurre: come si è comportata in questi casi?

«“Smarginatura” è una parola della tipografia che significa “togliere le marginature alle forme stampate” o “tagliare i margini delle pagine”. Non è una parola comune, neanche in italiano. Compare nel primo libro della trilogia dell’“Amica geniale”: “Il 31 dicembre del 1958 Lila ebbe il suo primo episodio di smarginatura. Il termine non è mio, lo ha sempre utilizzato lei forzando il significato comune della parola”. Ho cominciato con una traduzione letterale, “trimming the edges”, quindi “losing the edges”. Nella frase successiva, Lila precisa il significato e dice che “si dissolvevano i margini delle persone e delle cose”; ho provato con “dissolving the margins” o “dissolving the boundaries” e alla fine ho deciso che “dissolving margins” esprimeva sia il contenuto emotivo sia il senso originario della parola».

E “frantumaglia”?

«Non credo che l’autrice usi la parola “frantumaglia” nella tetralogia. Nella scena del terremoto, nella “Storia della bambina perduta”, compare il verbo “frantumare” nel suo significato più letterale (“Il terremoto – il terremoto del 23 novembre 1980 con quel suo frantumare infinito – ci entrò dentro le ossa”). Nel volume “La frantumaglia” l’autrice parla a lungo del significato, o meglio dei significati, della parola. In questo caso, abbiamo deciso di lasciare la parola in italiano, invece di cercare una parola inglese che sicuramente sarebbe stata riduttiva».

Parliamo dell’identità di Elena Ferrante: “La frantumaglia” dà vita ad una persona autoriale che, pur sfuggente, di fatto conferma la necessità che un libro abbia un creatore definito. È così oppure l’autore è davvero un semplice mediatore tanto quanto il traduttore?

«Il fatto non è tanto che un libro non ha bisogno di un creatore; piuttosto, non è necessario che il creatore sia una persona conosciuta. La Ferrante non dice di non esistere. Una persona che si chiama Elena Ferrante ha scritto i libri, certo, ma non è necessario conoscere i dettagli della sua vita o della sua persona. Avere i suoi libri è sufficiente. Dunque, noto o meno che sia, l’autore continua a essere un vero e proprio creatore».

Inutile nascondere il polverone che si è alzato le scorse settimane in seguito ad un’inchiesta giornalistica che avrebbe individuato, sulla base di informazioni strettamente personali, la “vera” Elena Ferrante: le è parsa legittima come operazione?

«L’intera operazione mi è sembrata del tutto illegittima: non ci sono scuse né giustificazioni. È stata una intrusione nella vita privata di una persona. Perché è stato fatto? Elena Ferrante non è un criminale e ha il diritto di rimanere anonima, di mantenere privata la propria identità. La vicenda mi ha turbato molto e spero che non abbia come conseguenza che la Ferrante non pubblichi più (il che è altamente probabile)».

(Our Brilliant Friend: Discussing Elena Ferrante – Hot Docs, 15 novembre, 6.30 PM, 506 Bloor Street West @ Bathurst, Toronto)

(Martedì 8 novembre 2016)

Time Out New York

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#FerranteNightFever

#FerranteNightFever

If you spent your subway rides this year with your nose in one of Elena Ferrante’s heartbreaking Neapolitan novels, you’re not alone. Join other fans at launch parties for her collection of essays, Frantumaglia, and children’s book, The Beach at Night. Head bookstores all over town this week for panels about the author, which include John Turturro, translator Ann Goldstein and other guests.

Translationista

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Ann Goldstein was awarded the Italian Prose in Translation Award for her translation of The Story of The Lost Child

2016 ALTA TRANSLATION PRIZES ANNOUNCED

SagawaCoverSPDThis weekend at the American Literary Translators Association conference in Oakland, the winners of the two 2016 National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose were announced, along with the Lucien Stryk Prize for a translation from an Asian language, and the Italian Prose in Translation Award. Without further ado, here are the winners:

The National Translation Award in Poetry has gone to Hilary Kaplan for her translation of Rilke Shake by Angélica Freitas (Phoneme Media).

The National Translation Award in Prose has gone to Liz Harris, for her translation of Tristano Dies: A Life by Antonio Tabucchi (Archipelago)

The Lucien Stryk Prize has gone to Sawako Nakayasu for her translation of The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa (Canarium Books).

The Italian Prose in Translation Award has gone to Ann Goldstein for her translation of The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (whose name is Elena Ferrante, thank you very much) (Europa Editions).

Congratulations to all this year’s ALTA prize winners!

The New York Times

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Elena Ferrante’s ‘My Brilliant Friend’ Goes From Page to Stage

By ROSLYN SULCAS

LONDON — A day after a New York Review of Books article about the possible real identity of the best-selling author known as Elena Ferrante, the Rose Theater Kingston here announced Monday that it would present the first stage adaptation of the four novels that have made Ms. Ferrante an international literary name.

The play, which is to begin previews on Feb. 25, is called “My Brilliant Friend” — the title of the first book in the series, which traces the lives of two Neapolitan women from childhood in the 1950s, through subsequent decades of marriage, motherhood and careers.

Like “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” another literary phenomenon-turned-theatrical-event, the play will be divided into two parts, which audiences can watch on one day or on separate occasions. The books, which also include “The Story of a New Name” (2013), “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay” (2014), and “The Story of the Lost Child” (2015), will be adapted by April de Angelis. The play will be directed by Melly Still, with casting to be announced.

Press materials did not specify whether Ms. Ferrante would be involved. In February the Italian film and television production company Wildsideannounced that it would adapt each of the four novels into an eight-episode season, without specifying when production would begin.

Ms. Ferrante’s identity, kept scrupulously secret by her publishers, has been the subject of intense curiosity and scrutiny since her books became an international sensation after “My Brilliant Friend” was published in English in 2012.

In the New York Review of Books article Claudio Gatti, an investigative journalist, wrote that financial records he examined “make a powerful case” that the Italian translator Anita Raja is the author of the Neapolitan novels.

Time

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Hillary Clinton Loves Reading Elena Ferrante: ‘It’s Just Hypnotic’

By Allison Sadlier / Entertainment Weekly
Sept. 11, 2016
‘I could not stop reading it or thinking about it’

There’s nothing like becoming obsessed with a good book, a sensation Hillary Clinton knows very well according to the third episode of her podcast With Her, co-hosted by Max Linsky.

The Democratic presidential nominee chatted about what she does during her limited downtime on the campaign trail and said, “I need the time to collect myself, to catch up on my reading, my sleeping, my exercising all of which get pushed to the bottom of the pile if I don’t make time.”

The nominee notes she reads “the serious stuff I’m supposed to read,” but that “homework” hasn’t stopped her from finding scants of time to read for enjoyment. Clinton counts novels, spy thrillers, mysteries, and biographies among her favorite genres, but admits she’s currently “engulfed” in one series in particular.

“You know what I have started reading and it’s just hypnotic is the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante,” she tells Linsky, commenting on Ferrante’s intoxicating novels about female relationships in Naples, Italy that have an intense cult following. “I had to stop myself so I read the first one. I could not stop reading it or thinking about it.”

Now in an attempt to savor the series, Clinton explains that she’s “rationing” out the second novel to make the four-part series last a little longer – and not keep her from the campaign.

Listen to the full With Her podcast here.

Slate

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Hillary Clinton Shamelessly Panders to Elena Ferrante Fans

 451638002-former-us-secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-signs

L.V. AndersonL.V. ANDERSON

L.V. Anderson is a Slate associate editor.

It’s generally accepted that Hillary Clinton’s campaign podcast, With Her, is little more than another way for Clinton to pander to her hardcore fans. Clinton doesn’t really need a boost among the podcast-listening population, which skews young and educated, but giving them an audio treat every couple of weeks is a good way to keep them excited about voting for her. As Slate’s Michelle Goldberg put it, the podcast is “charming and gutless propaganda.”

But though Clinton has shown no hesitation about throwing red meat to her base, her attempts to ingratiate herself with feminist voters in Thursday’s episode of With Her reach another level. In the episode, Clinton shamelessly panders to a particular subset of progressives: people who love the Neapolitan novels by pseudonymous Italian author Elena Ferrante.

Asked, “What do you read?” by With Her cohost Max Linsky, Clinton replied, “I read both serious stuff that I’m supposed to read … but I also read for pleasure. I like novels, I like spy thrillers and mysteries, so, I like biographies. So I read a lot.” The following exchange ensued:

Linsky: Anything that’s grabbed you lately that you read?

Clinton: You know what I have started reading, and it’s just hypnotic, is the Neapolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.

Linsky: Oh, that’s a dangerous thing for you to do, because people start those books and then they like call in sick to work.

Clinton: Max, I had to stop myself. OK, so I read the first one. I could not stop reading it or thinking about it, I was totally engulfed in the people, the sounds, the sights, the feelings of being in the setting that the author so beautifully described, and then I started the second one and thought, “OK, I can’t, I have to ration myself,” and that’s what I’m currently doing, I’m rationing myself.

Talk about blatant fan service! Although political calculation is the mostly obvious explanation for Clinton’s claim to be hooked on Ferrante’s novels, there are a couple of other possibilities worth mentioning. The first is that Clinton, like so many readers before her, genuinely fell in love with the psychological insight and page-turning plot of My Brilliant Friend, Ferrante’s account of growing up poor, female, and intellectual in the machismo-steeped slums of Naples. The second possibility? That Clinton isFerrante, and she’s trying to throw us off her trail by pretending she’s just now discovered the books. Either way: We’re on to you, Mrs. Clinton. And if you think My Brilliant Friend is good, just wait till you get to Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay.