💡 Elena Ferrante’s four-volume series, known collectively as the Neapolitan Novels, has captivated readers worldwide since the first installment, My Brilliant Friend, was published in Italian in 2011, and translated into English by Ann Goldstein in 2012. What began as a seemingly simple story about the friendship between two girls in a working-class Neapolitan neighborhood has become one of the defining literary achievements of our time.

In 2024, The New York Times named the novel the best book of the 21st century, and the Guardian ranked it 11th among the best books this millenia. With over 10 mn copies sold across 40 countries, Ferrante’s vivid, unflinching prose has established this work as both an enduring piece of literary fiction and a contemporary classic with the emotional sweep of canonical works.

Coming of age stories are a dime a dozen, but they rarely fail to resonate — and the journey of Elena Greco (Lenù) and Raffaella Cerullo (Lila) is unforgettable. Set primarily in 1950s Naples, the novel follows these two young girls from childhood through adolescence — a turbulent passage that Ferrante captures with pinpoint precision. Told through Elena’s perspective, we’re drawn into her youthful worldview with her partner-in-crime and best friend Lila at the center. Elena’s worldview revolves around Lila — an independent, bold, intimidatingly intelligent girl who seems to fear nothing.

As the girls navigate school, family dynamics, and the overwhelming anxieties of discovering the world around them, their relationship both deepens and strains. Literary critic James Wood describes their bond as “a rich and complicated tangle of envy, admiration, disappointment, [and] abandonment” — a portrait of female friendship that feels bracingly honest. The power of their story lies not in its extraordinariness but in its ordinariness, in the raw way readers experience every nuance of their connection. Ferrante doesn’t sugar-coat anything — she immerses us in Elena’s unfiltered emotional landscape, from her ugliest feelings to her unsentimental observations about life, creating a narrative that’s both jarring and refreshing.

Ferrante vividly portrays the socioeconomic realities of post-war Naples, highlighting the working-class families and contrasting Elena’s academic pursuits with Lila’s forced entry into the workforce. The story explores not only a complicated friendship, but also gender dynamics and class struggles, as well as themes including the black markets, the rising influence of the Camorra, and the prejudice suffered by people in Southern Italy.

Nostalgic and lighthearted yet deeply affecting, My Brilliant Friend is a compulsively readable novel that’s difficult to put down. The story becomes even more engrossing when you realize this is merely the first chapter of Elena and Lila’s journey — a series that follows them through nearly sixty years, into the present day. The HBO adaptation, which premiered in 2018 and concluded with its fourth season in 2024, has only intensified interest in the books.

WHERE TO FIND IT- You can find a physical copy at The BookSpot. You can also find the eBook on Amazon and Kobo.

Tags: